KWAK KYUNG-TAE - An Interview

Ahead of his upcoming solo show at Flow

What first drew you to working in Onggi (옹기) and Buncheong (분청)?

I first encountered Onggi in the spring of 1993 during my university’s annual ceramics wheel-throwing tournament. That morning began with a demonstration by an elder Onggi master. With striking ease and confidence, he stretched, stacked, and rhythmically paddled the clay into a massive, beautifully proportioned vessel. His movements were fluid yet grounded, rooted in a deep understanding of material, tradition and time.

I was completely transfixed. So much so that I nearly missed my time to compete. But in truth, the competition faded in importance. What stayed with me was the profound presence of that vessel and the quiet authority of the hands that shaped it.

That moment marked the beginning of a long journey for me. Onggi was not just a form or technique; it was a way of being in dialogue with the earth, with history, and with the body. It stirred something elemental in me – a respect for raw clay, a fascination with physical process, and a desire to root my practice in something honest and enduring.

Traditionally, buncheong is celebrated for its clean, white surface; an elegant "makeup" applied to clay, as it’s often described in Korean. But my approach to buncheong departs from that classical ideal. I don’t seek purity or perfection in whiteness; instead I treat the white slip as a blank canvas, a starting point for something more elemental.

When I paint on the surface, I am not only applying imagery. Rather, I am initiating a dialogue between clay, slip, and fire. In the reduction kiln, iron in the clay body interacts with the whiteness of the slip, creating soft blooms of pink, shadowy grays, and sometimes deep, unexpected hues. These iron blooms are unpredictable; formed not by control, but by surrendering to the alchemy of heat and time.

What first drew me to buncheong was this tension between refinement and rawness. Beneath the surface of tradition, I found space for spontaneity, contrast, and elemental transformation. The fire doesn’t just finish the work - it reveals it. My buncheong is not an act of covering, but one of uncovering; not a mask, but a mirror of process and material truth.

How has your understanding of or relationship with clay evolved over the years?

My relationship with clay has shifted over time, but the presence of clay has remained steady. As a child, a creek ran in front of my home and beside it, a patch of soft, white clay. I spent hours using this wild clay to transform my imagination into form. It was quiet, instinctive, and free.

As I grew older, clay became more than a material. It became my profession, my teacher, and a source of discipline and discovery. As it taught me, I slowly built understanding through repetition and attention.

Now, clay is a companion. We’ve developed a mutual trust. It continues to challenge and teach me, but with a sense of familiarity. What began as play has become a lifelong relationship, one that still evolves with each piece I make.

Your work often involves spontaneous marks and gestural brushwork. How do you balance instinct and intention while making?

What may appear spontaneous on the surface is, in truth, grounded in deep intention. For me, instinct is not separate from knowledge. It lives in the body as tacit understanding, shaped by decades of working with clay, fire, and brush. Listening to the subtle shifts in iron in the clay, the slip, the fire, and how they respond to one another.

The true skill lies in making the mark feel effortless, while knowing it is supported by discipline. In that space between intention and instinct, something honest and alive can surface.

Can you describe the physical and emotional experience of working on your large vessels?

Forming a large vessel requires all the muscles, nerves, and breath in my body to become one. A rhythmic movement emerges from my body to tell a story. To viewers, my hand movement may appear to be the main focus, but during the making process I breathe in relationship with my tacit knowledge within my body, creating rhythm and encountering it. In other words, my body, breath, and emotions from a relationship together, and through this unity, the vessel is ultimately completed.

How does minimalism or restraint play a role in your work?

When I apply buncheong, I leave marks with both brush and hand, but I don’t try to resolve or control everything. Through my tacit knowledge, I know when it is time to stop. The remaining space on the clay, the traces of the brush, and even the rhythm of my breath tell a richer story and so I restrain my movements and breathing.

This means I accept the outcomes that arise from the interplay between gesture, breath, material qualities, and process. That acceptance is what I consider my form of minimalism.

What are your favourite tools and processes when making?

My favorite tool is my own hand, an extension of my body. It is a tool shaped by time and experience, refined through years of practice. Over time, my hand has become so familiar with the material that it now intuitively determines both the beginning and the end of a piece.

What does it mean to you to share this cultural tradition with a global audience?

For me, sharing tradition is not simply about teaching the past. It is about sharing lived experience. It involves communicating traditional techniques while also offering a space to reinterpret these through a contemporary lens.

In countless demonstrations and classes, people engage not just with words, but with the process itself. Through Korean traditional techniques, they come to recognise their own forms of knowledge, ones they may not have been aware of before. In this way, I see the transmission of. Korean traditional culture not as a visual exchange, but as a tactile and direct experience.

Are there any pieces in this show that hold particular significance for you?

The byeongpung series is a form of ceramic painting where the canvas is made from clay. During the Joseon Dynasty, byeongpung could be found in palaces and noble homes. These culturally-significant folding screens bore a series of artworks, typically created in ink on paper mounted on silk. These artworks also served functional purposes in Korean architecture as room dividers.

For this series, rather than pursuing a flat, two-dimensional painting, I build up thickness to create a sculptural, three-dimensional effect. On top of this textured surface, the interplay of the gestural brush marks and iron blooms abstractly echo the tradition of jingyeong sansuhwa (진경산수화 - Korean landscape painting).

Much like byeongpung, these works move beyond the function of a traditional hanging painting. Each panel is pierced with holes at the top, giving them practical use and transforming them into abstract ceramic vessels with painterly qualities, rather than merely wall-mounted paintings. Two of the original six panels will be on display.

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