Sunkoo Yuh, Grafted Stories

About

Sunkoo Yuh’s first museum solo exhibition in Miami will feature large scale ceramic sculptures, porcelain tiles and works on paper. Created over a twelve year period, the pieces interweave a tale of cultural integration, spiritual discovery, and creating order out of chaos. Yuh states: “The body of my work as an artist is to transform the images from my mind into tangible ceramic sculptures. The sculptures are sometimes monumental and then again sometimes small.  My ceramic sculpture express not only physical realities but psychological realities at the same time, the sculptures also reflect my relationship with people and life experience around me, encompassing front and back, inside and outside, present and past memories”. 

Yuh’s work is a reflection of the ongoing dialog he has with his day to day life. A cast of characters inform each sculpture and drawing- forming a bridge between his imagined reality and the travails he experiences as a bi-cultural citizen and artist. In essence the work is the “residue” of his attempts at securing a sense of permanency in a fluid world.

SunKoo Yuh is currently Associate Professor at the University of Georgia, Athens.  He received his MFA from Alfred University. He has exhibited widely and has received many awards and honors.  In 2005-03 he was the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, the Grand Prize at the 2nd World Ceramic Biennale International Competition, Icheon, Korea, The Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize and the Virginia A. Groot Foundation.  His work is in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, Icheon World Ceramic Center, Korea, Oakland Museum of Art, California, and more.