Immigration of Ceramics

Se Oh

1984

Se Oh is a Korean-American ceramic artist based in the United States. He was born in Incheon, Korea, and adopted to Tennessee in the States when he was nine months old. This background becomes a strong motivation for the artist to create a connection with his roots in Korea. It penetrates throughout his work and is revealed in attempts to bring in traditional Korean tea bowl shape or to use Goryeo celadon glaze. Oh has held solo exhibitions at galleries in New York and other places, including the most recent show (2024) at Stroll Garden in Los Angeles. He has been receiving attention for his recent activities, such as participating in the 2024 LA Frieze art fair.

In the process of exploring his identity, Se Oh became interested in motifs of nature. The wrinkled shapes that project throughout the work are inspired by the shapes of plants and flowers. The artist, inspired by his fascination with nature’s organic ecosystem as a child, reflects in his work that human relationships are also interconnected. On the white porcelain created in that way, Oh applies Goryeo celadon glaze, a Korean material. Externally, it expresses the vitality and organic nature of life originating from nature, and materially, it connects to its Korean heritage by using the celadon glaze.

Self-portrait is a work that reveals the artist’s identity by creating a Korean tea bowl that is half covered with Korean celadon glaze and the other half exposing bright white American porcelain. The works Goldfish Ponds, Still Waters, and Water Poppy take flowers and ponds as motifs. While Oh captures images of nature in ceramics, the resentment towards his own identity is also expressed through the pottery with holes in the artworks such as Inner Han and Purge.

The artist executed new work Jeong (情) Garden created for the exhibition while staying in Gwangju for a month. The work was inspired by the formative nature of Korean plants found through local research and was created using Korean clay. Each ceramic also represents the people the artist met in Gwangju.