INHWA LEE: AT THE EDGE OF LIGHT

  • Presentation

    Galerie Maria Wettergren is proud to present the solo exhibition of  Inhwa Lee, At the Edge of Light, which will be open from September 12th. to October 31st. 2025. Winner of numerous prestigious awards, Inhwa Lee is considered one of the most important Korean ceramicists today, with works in museum collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, UK; National Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea; Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan; and Yanggu Porcelain Museum, Korea. An Inhwa Lee porcelain piece is distinguished by its remarkable thinness, and infinite variations in density and transparency, inspired by the meeting of light and porcelain, observed through the artist’s studio windows. Of extreme delicacy, the walls of the ceramics reveal their internal structure, like the leaves of a tree. Their poetic beauty arises from a tension between gentle presence and dissolution into luminosity. Inspired by a special memory of a moment when the light permeated and animated one of her first thin vessels, making the mineral material come alive, and almost …looking like as if it had just crumbled…the artist has constantly been aiming to …make a pottery that is as thin as the light permeates…. Instead of the material, I wanted to put in the empty space. And I want to let only the light slowly penetrate into the empty space. The thin walls of the ceramic vessels offer themselves to the sun’s radiance, transforming mineral substance into silent song. Through this purification, the porcelain acquires an aerial quality that allows the passage of hours to show through its luminous body. Lee’s ceramic works are born from this encounter between meditative disposition and sure gesture.

  • About the Artist

    Lee's ceramic works are born from the encounter between meditative disposition and sure gesture. 
  • When natural light passes through translucent white porcelain, placed near a window, it never manifests in the same way twice....

    When natural light passes through translucent white porcelain, placed near a window, it never manifests in the same way twice. On a snowy winter day, the light becomes pale, bluish, giving a gently melancholic tonality to the work. In midsummer, when the porcelain is exposed to a west-facing window, the light becomes intense and slow, penetrating deeply into the piece and bringing it a sense of calm. As the porcelain constantly evolves with the seasons and hours of the day, I have found comfort and peace in long periods of silent observation. Spending time looking at the work resembled meditation, a motionless and silent act of emptying the mind and pure observation. - Inhwa Lee

     

  • The Boundaries of White Porcelain , Yoon Sorim The Boundaries of White Porcelain , Yoon Sorim The Boundaries of White Porcelain , Yoon Sorim The Boundaries of White Porcelain , Yoon Sorim The Boundaries of White Porcelain , Yoon Sorim The Boundaries of White Porcelain , Yoon Sorim The Boundaries of White Porcelain , Yoon Sorim

    The Boundaries of White Porcelain

    Yoon Sorim
    The finished product is near wafer-thin and subtly translucent. The works drastically change in appearance depending on placement and lighting. Experimental surface expressions—such as semi-translucent glaze suspended mid-drip and sandblasting—evoke temporality and leave traces of action. Such techniques, which highlight the purity of white porcelain clay, a notoriously difficult material to manipulate, can only be achieved through a deep understanding of the medium’s properties and limitations. Her white porcelain proposes a new aesthetic situated within the tensions between form and material, and between history and the present. 
    -Yoon Sorim, (Curator at the National Museum of Modern Art, Seoul, Korea.)
  • Inhwa Lee - At the Edge of Light
  • Works

  • Digital Catalogue

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