Sangmin Lee

For Sangmin Lee, pottery is a space where accumulated past times encounter the present moments and a medium for communing with ancestors across time and space. The artist moves the designed shape that he wants to express to the finished product of a 12mm glass sheet, and then digs out the back of the glass sheet and polishes its surface. The process of carving the surface of the glass with diamond sandpaper is similar to the process of self-discipline. With high-degree of concentration and professionalism, the artist only uses the touch of his hands to estimate the angle of the surface ground by sandpaper and creates an image of all things. Through this process of work, the artist embodies a reflection on the inside of all things, and defines his work as an ‘exploration of the inner world of all things.’ Another important element of his work is ‘light.’ The light discloses the essence of other things, while the source of vitality that does not disappear on its own. To the artist, light is a medium that reveals his invisible thoughts and awareness. The inner side of the artist is revealed as a work and the artist’s thoughts are conveyed to the viewer. In his work, the bowl reveals its shape due to the light penetrating through the glass and the boundaries of darkness resulting from it. Several layers of shadow’s outline that emerged on the back of the glass sheet produced by reflection and refraction in response to the surface sway like a mirage. The space between the glass sheet and its back is a boundary line dividing past and present, and the shape of the past is overlaid and times are overlapped, and it creates mixed moments. These impressions of light reveal the research of essence that the artist wants to express.