Park Young Sook

When Form Meets Gesture

On View
Jun 19 – Aug 14, 2026
Seoul

Pace will present an exhibition of work by Park Young Sook at its Seoul gallery from June 19 to August 14. Titled When Form Meets Gesture, this presentation will bring together works created by the artist over the last 40 years, including new sculptures produced this year, that reflect her longstanding collaborations with Lee Ufan.

A celebrated and renowned ceramicist in Korea, Park is best known for her Moon Jars, round porcelain vessels named for their full shape and luminous glaze, which first appeared in Korea in the 17th century. Park’s Moon Jars, however, are larger than those produced in centuries past. Her porcelain works exceed two feet (70 cm) in height with a proportional circumference, taking on a commanding presence in space. Their surfaces range from snow white to milk white to blue-tinged white; variations in color are the result of the firing process. Park’s use of the eobdaji technique—in which two separately thrown halves are joined and inverted—emphasizes wavering curves and slightly misaligned proportions in the formal language of her compositions. Each of the artist’s Moon Jars is imbued with its own distinct personality and idiosyncrasies in contour, glaze, and silhouette. At the heart of Park’s practice is her dedication to reinterpreting the traditional Moon Jar through a contemporary lens while maintaining a sustained and meaningful dialogue with Korea’s rich history of ceramic art.

Born in 1947 in Gyeongju, the former capital of the Silla Kingdom (57 BCE–935 CE), Park grew up immersed in Buddhist relics, artworks, and ancient temples. Through her white porcelain and buncheong ware that retains subtle traces of the raw physicality of clay, she explores living tension and force as opposed to resolved form. The artist has owned and operated her own kiln since 1979, refining and perfecting her labor-intensive, highly technical, meditative process to create delicate forms and unique color gradients in her works. Fired at extremely high temperatures, the surfaces of Park’s Moon Jars are exceptionally smooth and dense.

Since the early 1980s, Park and Lee Ufan have maintained a collaborative relationship, with Lee using Park’s porcelain vessels and plates as surfaces for his painterly interventions and explorations of gesture and materiality in ceramics. Lee has long been drawn to Korean ceramics, particularly Moon Jars, whose subtle irregularities he has described as possessing an “elusive variability” that creates a distinct “visual resonance.” Lee has been a mentor to Park for many years, regularly visiting her at her Seoul studio, and this exhibition at Pace Seoul will shed light on the relationships between their practices.

Holistically, When Form Meets Gesture explores the ways that form and gesture reveal themselves through one another. Park’s porcelain sculptures are embodiments of condensed time, matter, and repeated actions, connecting with Lee’s philosophies on the aesthetic of emptiness and the relationship between a viewer, an artwork, and the space they inhabit. Variations in brush pressure, pigment density, and texture emphasize the essential act of mark making that defines Lee’s practice, while the luminous ceramic surface introduces a distinct material presence.

This presentation focuses on the new possibilities that emerge when Lee’s painterly gesture—the tension and flow created by a single brushstroke—transcends the canvas to meet the three-dimensional materiality of Park’s porcelain. Upon the smooth surface of the ceramic, the brushstroke permeates more naturally and organically, expanding the depth and sensorial effects of color and abstraction that are difficult to capture on a flat plane. Within the artists’ collaborations, Park’s technical mastery of porcelain and Lee’s minimalist painterly language converge to create works that move fluidly between painting, sculpture, action, and form.

Films

Artists on Artists: Lee Ufan x Park Young Sook

This Artists on Artists film follows Lee Ufan at Pace in Seoul as he discusses the work of Park Young Sook, one of South Korea’s leading contemporary ceramicists. Renowned for her unique visual language and for combining modern firing techniques with ceramic traditions drawn from the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), Park has maintained a collaborative relationship with Lee since the early 1980s. Her Moon Jars and other porcelain vessels and plates have provided nuanced surfaces for Lee’s painterly interventions and explorations of gesture and materiality. “I believe Korea possesses a distinctive sensitivity to subtle variations in form,” says Lee, “and I think that quality is beautifully expressed in Park Young Sook’s work.”

About the Artist

Park Young Sook is one of South Korea's leading contemporary ceramicists, renowned for her unique visual language and for combining modern firing techniques with ceramic traditions drawn from the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910). Raised in Gyeongju—the former capital of the Silla Kingdom (57 BCE–935 CE) and home to a rich concentration of Buddhist relics and art—Park spent her childhood exploring the city’s ancient temples and cultural heritage sites. Her artistic development was further influenced through mentorship by art historian Chung Yang-mo and guidance from the artist Lee Ufan. This early engagement with artistic and spiritual traditions informed her pursuit of ceramics, particularly baekja (white porcelain) and buncheong ware, and later shaped her distinctive contemporary reinterpretation of the moon jar.