"I regard ceramic as an indicator of history. However, would people living 100 years from today be able to assume the region, cultural sphere and period of the ceramic of today? Elements indigenous to particular cultural spheres or specific regions are gradually becoming blurred, and slowly mixing with the present culture."

June Lee

The critical awareness in Ju Sekyun’s work can be found in his creative response to tradition, norm and representation. In his Tracing Drawing Series the artist collects images of treasure of ceramics from the Internet, and then draws those images on plain white ceramics with a pencil. The combination of these images from various sources creates a gap between the drawn images and the original ceramic pieces. Ju has been seeking ways to personalize the enforced meaning of an institutionalized culture. He is looking into creating a new system of meaning in which the tradition from the past and the present memory, universal norms and individual reality, public signs and private meaning are intertwined.

" I find ceramic to be the most versatile material and it is suited to express my ideas. Working in clay is really deep and has much to interest me: philosophy, technique - so much. Everything that surrounds and excites me is automatically processed and transformed into the final result: an artwork."

Myung Nam An