Goheung Buncheong Ware: The Creative Artistic Spirit Brought to Life by Ceramic Artists

Resident Artist Program Becomes a Hub for Creative Work
Yerin Lee Draws Attention with Contemporary Ceramic Art

The Buncheong Culture Museum in Goheung County, South Jeolla Province (Governor: Gong Youngmin), announced that artist Yerin Lee, who is currently serving as a long-term resident artist in 2026, is garnering attention as a next-generation Buncheong ware ceramic artist. She is reinterpreting the traditional formative beauty and artistic spirit of Goheung Buncheong ware with a contemporary sensibility through her creative work.

The Goheung Buncheong Culture Museum’s resident artist program is operated to ensure the modern succession of the Buncheong ware tradition and to lay the foundation for the development of the local ceramic culture. Participating artists are provided with workspaces, and they also have opportunities to explore local cultural resources and engage in exchange programs with regional artists, thereby expanding their creative capabilities.

Artist Yerin Lee at work. ［Photo by Goheung-gun］

Yerin Lee, selected as this year's long-term resident artist, graduated from the Department of Ceramics and the Department of Art History at Ewha Womans University, and completed her master’s coursework in ceramics at Seoul National University of Science and Technology. She is currently engaged in ceramic sculptural work that explores the emotions and traces of contemporary human life, based on the forms of artifacts and clay figurines.

Focusing on the simplicity of form and human expressions found in ancient earthenware and clay figurines, Lee records the emotions, gestures, and everyday scenes of modern people using ceramics as her medium. In particular, she is committed to expressing the sensibilities and contemporary landscapes of modern individuals through the texture of clay, developing her own unique formative language.

During her residency, Lee plans to conduct in-depth research into the formative beauty and surface decoration techniques of Goheung Buncheong ware and apply these insights to her creative process. She aims to present a variety of formative experiments that reinterpret the free expression, sense of everyday life, and spontaneous surface techniques characteristic of Buncheong ware in a contemporary context, thereby capturing the emotions and daily life of today.

Additionally, she is undertaking projects that document the rapidly generated and disappearing images of the digital era on the surfaces of ceramics, exploring the relationship between ephemerality and continuity. Through this, she is expected to expand the expressive spirit of traditional Buncheong ware with a contemporary sensibility and present new possibilities for ceramic art that bridges the past and present.

Yerin Lee stated, "Although the emotions and postures of internet memes are quickly consumed and replaced, they contain the expressions and gestures of people living in this era. Based on the spontaneity, sense of daily life, and honest expressiveness shown by Goheung Buncheong ware, I want to record contemporary emotions and images in ceramics."

A museum official commented, "Yerin Lee is a promising artist who is carrying out creative activities that fuse a deep understanding of traditional ceramic culture with a contemporary sensibility. We expect her work to be significant in broadening both the artistic value and modern application potential of Goheung Buncheong ware."

Meanwhile, the Goheung Buncheong Culture Museum supports the creative work of domestic and international artists through its residency program and operates initiatives such as open studios, achievement exhibitions, and cultural and art programs for local residents, striving to vitalize the local ceramic culture and expand opportunities for cultural enjoyment.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.