Artist Jeong Young-rak, a master of pottery in Yeoju City, will hold an exhibition under the theme "Onggi, Embracing Nature." Gyeonggi Yeoju City announced on the 4th that it will hold an exhibition of Yeoju City Master Potter Jeong Yeong-rak at 'Gallery Insa 1010' from the 9th to the 14th.
Artist Jeong Yeong-rak graduated from Ewha Womans University’s Department of Ceramics and has been making Onggi pottery at Obuja Onggi for 27 years since 1997. In 2022, he was selected as the Master Potter (No. 2) in the ceramic shaping field of Yeoju City. He received the 'Best Activity Award' in 2023 from the National Heritage Agency’s National Intangible Heritage Excellent Practitioner Capacity Building Program, and in 2024, he was awarded a certificate of merit from the National Intangible Heritage Crafts Association.
He is also uniquely recognized as the only female Onggi master who has completed training under the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Onggi Master (No. 96 Kim Il-man) and the Gyeonggi-do Intangible Cultural Heritage Onggi Master (No. 37).
This exhibition is held as part of the National Heritage Agency’s National Intangible Heritage Practitioner Support Project and is themed 'Onggi, Embracing Nature.' Through Onggi pottery, the artist aims to express the affinity he feels between the lives of old scholars who ground ink and wrote calligraphy and the lives of artisans, portraying the scholars’ rooms and the four seasons of Korea visible through their windows.
Items such as inkstones, brush holders, brush rests, and ink slabs were made from Onggi, and a jangdokdae (traditional Korean earthenware jar stand) outside the room was created as a sculpture to diversify the exhibition with works of various sizes. While pursuing innovation by applying colored glaze and clay to Onggi, the exhibition also faithfully expresses traditional Onggi techniques such as suhwamun (water painting patterns) and bijil (burnishing).
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