Translated Vase

The conceptual basis of Yeesookyung’s series Translated Vases lies in notions of rejection, redefinition, and renewal. In this series, the artist assembles her works from the fragments of shattered vessels made by an elderly master of Korean-style porcelain ware of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) who broke and discarded his pieces when they did not meet his standards of perfection. Yeesookyung reassembles the discarded remains (which she calls “ceramic trash”) into misshapen constructions that hint at the violent acts of destruction that lie behind the beginning of a new piece.

Yeesookyung works intuitively, letting the different shapes of the porcelain fragments come together naturally rather than imposing a predetermined form to her constructions. Final pieces retain none of the tranquil symmetry of their broken sources, but they attain an unexpected beauty through their deformed and misshapen profiles and the unforced juxtaposition of incomplete painted blue-and-white patterns with solid white surfaces. The artist underscores her creative process by adding gilding along each glued seam: “what I am trying to do is literally ‘translating’ the . . . pieces of broken vases and mending their ‘wounds.’ . . . The crack, which symbolizes the wound, is emphasized with gold.” In this practice, she was inspired by the traditional craft of using gold lacquer to restore wooden Korean Buddhist temple statues and by the reverence inherent in this restoration practice.