Iron pigment painted Buncheong Pottery by Sung Jae Choi

Broad, loose brushstrokes, scraffito line drawing, and abstract drips: in Modern and Contemporary painting, there has been much interest in spontaneous line and gestural painting, and as a result, these techniques are familiar to most students of Art History. In the 1950s, Abstract Expressionism shattered all preconceptions of the two-dimensional plane with its unbridled, non-figurative style. At the time, it was unlike anything seen before in the Fine Art world, yet in Korea, these unrestrained techniques had been practiced for centuries- not by painters, but by potters working in the traditional Buncheong style.

Sung Jae Choi, their modern-day compatriot, demonstrates in his ceramics both a great respect for these early innovators and a desire to expand upon the works of his predecessors. Choi has assimilated both the centuries-old vessels and the innovations of contemporary artists into his visual vocabulary, using a rich variety of sources to find inspiration. Choi’s pottery is nonetheless remarkably focused, even as it simultaneously gives homage to the traditional works and pushes the boundaries of what it means to be making Buncheong pottery today.

Buncheong ceramics emerged in the early Joseon Dynasty in the late 14th century. Its roots are humble. At the time, Korean celadon was the most prevalent style of pottery, so in discovering Buncheong’s origin it is useful to begin here. Celadon ceramics were typified by their use of a pale green-blue glaze on a light clay body. They were often incised or inlaid and intricately decorated while leather-hard, and have a polished and refined appearance. The later, rustic Buncheong pottery seems to lie in direct contrast to these celadon vessels, but the two dissimilar styles are in fact linked by “hybrids,” as techniques, demands, and tastes in Korea gradually changed.

In the early Joseon Dynasty, there was a government decree stating that due to a shortage in metal supplies and financial concerns, ceramics would replace all bronze, gold and silver vessels, even those used at court. At first, Buncheong pottery was developed as an economical way to both meet this increase in demand and mimic the popular celadon vessels with simpler, more readily available materials. Early Buncheong was very close in appearance to celadon, having been made using many of the same techniques, with an eye towards the same results. Gradually, however, the pots changed. When the government decree was lifted and Buncheong vessels were no longer required to replace metal for the wealthy at court, the potters were free to be more innovative and inventive - even playful -since they were now serving only the lower classes.

1. As a result, Buncheong evolved into a foremost style in its own right, and is today oftentimes seen as the style that best embodies the country’s spirit for its ties to rural Korea.

The rise in taste for porcelain ceramics was the eventual demise of Buncheong in Korea, although in Japan it was later revived during the “Pottery Wars,” when captured Korean potters used the nearly-lost style to appease Japanese aesthetic. In the tea ceremony, humble Buncheong rice bowls satisfied Japan’s newfound taste for the wabi.

2. In Korea, however, even rural tastes were turning almost exclusively to porcelain. Buncheong potters were left attempting to imitate the appearance of this more delicate material using their own simple gray clay body and brightening the surface with white slip. When the slip was brushed on, it is referred to as kwiyal, or hakeme in Japan; when dipped, the terms punjang or paekto apply

3. Although Korean potters using this method were not able to fully imitate porcelain, as was their goal, the contrast of dark and light materials has a beauty of its own. It is this technique that we see practiced by Sung Jae Choi today with great mastery and modern sensibility. The variations possible with such limited materials are excitingly endless. Each of Choi’s pots feels fresh and uniquely considered. In fact, each is: first in form, and second in slip decoration.

While Choi’s dynamic “painting” often takes center-stage, there is sureness to his form that this painting relies on. Often deceptively simple, Sung Jae Choi’s shapes demonstrate his proficiency on the potter’s wheel. Some of these shapes are traditional in origin, bearing a close resemblance to their early Buncheong counterparts. The flattened bottle SC316 recalls the flask-shaped forms of Joseon dynasty, while SC289 seems to reference Korean onggi, large earthenware storage jars which were (and to a small extent still are) used to store kimchi or other kitchen essentials in Korea.

4. In contrast to these traditional shapes, other forms are more influenced by modern sources. These are all still Buncheong pots, without question- but coupled with the interest in tradition is a wink to the modern audience, an acknowledgement of current influences and his departure from folk art to fine art. The faceting of SC314, for example, is purely contemporary and dynamic. There is also softness in much of Choi’s new work- pots like SC318 and SC328 are segmented and altered, but with subtlety. The nuanced forms of these vessels highlight the potter’s maturing sensibilities. Too often, an interesting carving or glazing technique attempts to conceal a halfhearted or ill-considered shape. Without this essential foundation, a pot (no matter how well decorated) will fall flat. Within the variety of his shapes, Choi demonstrates a prowess in clay and ability to make forms that truly sing before any decoration is even applied.

With these vessels as his canvases, Choi is in a prime position to begin his brushwork when the pots become leather-hard. In his slip painting, Choi is positively unmatched in skill and confidence, working with a sureness that can only come from decades of experience. First, Choi will coat a pot with a loose application of white slip. Oftentimes, this base will be a surface he dives into with finger marks or incising. Working quickly, while the slip is still wet, Choi plays with strokes wide or thin, short or long, stark or soft, sparse or abundant. Within the genre of Buncheong ware, Choi creates contemporary masterworks of abstract white painting. If the pot has been dipped instead of brushed, Choi will sometimes leaves his finger marks visible at the base as a nod to the handmade process (SC331).

In addition to these literal finger marks, Choi will occasionally use stamps to decorate the slip surface. The use of chrysanthemum stamps is new to this body of work, but it was once a common symbol on pots made during the Joseon dynasty, representing the “virtuous Confucian scholar.

5. However, where chrysanthemums were usually used either as repeating patterns or large, central decorations on these earlier vessels, Choi again has “updated” this ancient motif with his modern sensibility. The flowers appear in unexpected clusters across the works, stems trailing petals like shooting stars (SC308).

Iron, too, plays a role in Choi’s pottery. Sometimes, it is brushed on after the slip has been applied, decorating the pot with golden gestures (SC291) or lovely floral imagery (SC297). In other instances, the layer of slip is punctured with a pinhole, allowing the clay’s iron content to affect the pot’s surface. On SC321 and SC317, this creates splashes of sunray tangerine across the field of white.

When comparing the small sake bottles SC358 and SC356, one is struck by the versatility of the artist’s techniques on relatively similar forms. They are studies in contrasts- brushed and dipped, thin and thick, loose and decisive. How simple the methods, but varied the results! The forms themselves are the same; oftentimes, Choi will standardize his surfaces to experiment on consistent shapes and allow for the slip alone to set the pieces apart. His pots call to mind the minimalist paintings of Robert Ryman, who, working only with white materials, was able to achieve a wide range of effects, proving that versatility need not be limited by palette. In the 1970s, the Korean painter Park Seo-Bo was a leader in the Monochrome movement. Park Seo-Bo was not connected to Western Minimalism, but he too experimented with white-on-white painting.

6. Sung Jae Choi can count himself amongst these modernists; using only a small tonal range, Sung Jae achieves incredible variation. In this way, he also reduces the visual components and in effect highlights the sheer materiality of clay and slip.

There are few elements in Choi’s work that break from the purely abstract, but the most prevalent are his signature ducks. These birds are so deconstructed that you almost don’t see them at first glance, having been broken down into just two or three short finger swipes. They often seem to be serenely gliding through a pond of slip, entering or exiting the frame of the form and bringing with them a tranquility and calm. Sung Jae also gives these birds life in the round (SC322 and SC323) - liberated from the two-dimensional plane, they call to mind the traditional wooden ducks often given as wedding gifts in Korea. In matrimony, they stand in for the husband and wife. On Choi’s pottery, they can also be interpreted as a representation of the artist himself.

These ceramics- sculptural ducks, vases, jars, sake bottles, and cups alike- have the uncanny power to transcend time and space. They harken back to the Joseon Dynasty, but comfortably inhabit our modern homes in countries all around the globe. Sung Jae Choi has married distinct sensibilities of the past and present, and from out of this fusion created a personal ceramic style evocative of both, yet his own to the core.


Tess Mattern is the Marketing and Publications Associate at Pucker Gallery. She studied Studio Arts, Graphic Design, and Art History at Boston University, and is currently a beginning potter who can make a mean mug.

1. Jeon Seung-chang, Buncheong: Unconventional Beauty, Korean Buncheong Ceramics from Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (Metropolitan Museum of Art), 3-35.
2. Soyoung Lee and Jeon Seung-chang, Decoding Design: Buncheong’s Forms, Decorative Techniques, and Motifs, Korean Buncheong Ceramics from Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (Metropolitan Museum of Art), 98.
3. Jane Portal, Korea: Art and Archaeology (Thames & Hudson), 137.
4. ibid., 161.
5. Soyoung Lee and Jeon Seung-chang, Decoding Design: Buncheong’s Forms, Decorative Techniques, and Motifs, Korean Buncheong Ceramics from Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (Metropolitan Museum of Art), 75.
6. Jane Portal, Korea: Art and Archaeology (Thames & Hudson), 179.