Jinsik Yoo, Procession of the Roses, stoneware, glaze, 2023, 22” x 12” x 23.5”. Image: courtesy of the artist.

The Jane Hartsook Gallery is pleased to present new work by Jinsik Yoo. In his solo debut, Yoo uses figurative abstraction to question cultural boundaries, examining the border between myth and reality, the state and its people, and the body and its past or future. Drawing from Korean myths as well as his own experiences, Yoo asks how boundaries are drawn and what it costs to maintain them.

The sculptures in this exhibition reimagine how we experience those boundaries internally and in our relationships with others. One figure captures the moment of transformation in a classical Korean creation myth in which a tiger and a bear beg to become human. Another represents Yoo’s experience as a riot police officer during his mandatory military service, when he was charged to become an embodiment of state power. Still other pieces in this exhibition draw on feelings of joy and liberation Yoo experienced as a queer person moving from South Korea, where he was living in the closet, to the United States. Yoo uses these works to consider how border crossings—across forms, cultural conventions, and space—are essential to existence and to art making.

Jinsik Yoo is a New York-based figurative ceramic sculptor and painter. Yoo earned his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and his BFA from Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea. Recent exhibitions include: the Cincinnati Art Academy (Ohio; 2023), The Clay Studio in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania; 2023), and the Eutectic Gallery (Portland, OR; 2021). His work is held in a number of public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art of Medellin, Colombia and the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum. He is currently a resident artist at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia.

Images below: Alan Wiener, courtesy Greenwich House Pottery 2024.