Collection: Park Sung Wook

Ceramics

Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1972, Park Sung Wook currently lives and works in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi-do. Reinterpreting the textures and tones of Buncheong ware through a contemporary sensibility, he creates ceramic wall pieces and tea ware using fragments of clay known as “Pyeon. ”Layers of quiet whites, pale grays, earthy tones, and deep blues come together to evoke landscapes reminiscent of accumulated time and fragments of memory.
His works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Korea and London, including at the Saatchi Gallery and the Collect Art Fair.
His works are included in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Horim Museum, among others.

Artist's Statement

In my twenties, I visited historic kiln sites from Korea’s Joseon Dynasty, where fragments of celadon and white porcelain from different centuries quietly coexisted within the same landscape.
Those ceramic shards carried the traces of time itself and became the starting point for Pyeon.

My work begins with broken and scattered fragments discovered at old kiln sites. Though they have lost their original forms, I believe memory and time remain within them.

Rather than viewing these shards as remnants of something lost, I see them as traces suspended within the continuous flow of time.

Through the process of separating, reconnecting, and accumulating fragments, I construct new structures and landscapes.
Each piece contains its own memory and temporality, yet together they form quiet relationships within a larger continuum.

Pyeon is not an act of restoration. It is an exploration of how memory endures through fragments, and how traces of time can be transformed into new forms and landscapes.

Buncheong

Buncheong originates from Buncheong ware, a distinctive style of Korean ceramics that developed during the early Joseon Dynasty in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Characterized by white slip brushed over a muted gray clay body, Buncheong embraces spontaneous techniques such as carving, brushwork, and inlay.
Its quiet irregularities, warmth, and traces of the hand reflect a uniquely Korean aesthetic — one that carries the texture and temperature of earth itself.

For Park Seongwook, Buncheong ware is not simply a ceramic tradition, but a material through which time, memory, and nature continue to flow.

Artist’s Reflection

Buncheong fragments contain earth, water, and fire.

At the moment the white slip is applied, the flow of earth and water emerges. After a fire, traces of fire remain.

Viewed from afar, viewed up close,
gathered and scattered repeatedly —
The fragments continue to shift in presence and meaning.

The moon waxes and wanes, appearing within the light.

As I endlessly arrange ceramic fragments, I enter a state of quiet emptiness.
Following the flow of nature, Buncheong gradually becomes a language of its own.

For me, fragments do not signify an ending.
They are the beginning