Lydia SooJin Park: Selected works, 2021-2026
My work explores the accumulation of memory, emotion, and time through layered ceramic surfaces that exist between painting and sculpture. Using thin sheets of clay, I construct compositions that function as both physical objects and painterly images, blurring the boundary between two- and three-dimensional space.
Rather than approaching clay as a material to be transformed beyond recognition, I work with it in a way that preserves its material presence—its weight, fragility, and tactile resistance remain visible throughout the process. In this sense, the clay is not merely a carrier of image or form, but an active surface that continues to assert its own materiality.
I use clay as a medium for abstraction, gesture, texture, and accumulation. Fragments, stains, and assembled surfaces become visual traces that resemble emotional residues or incomplete memories. The works are often wall-mounted, operating as sculptural paintings or tactile surfaces that extend beyond conventional definitions of ceramics.
I am interested in how memory continuously shifts through time—never fixed, but repeatedly accumulated, fragmented, and transformed. Through processes of layering, erosion, and material tension, the works reflect the instability of perception and the persistence of emotional traces.
While some forms subtly reference organic shapes or functional vessels, they ultimately move away from utility and toward abstraction. By navigating between surface and object, image and material, I aim to create works that hold memory not as narrative, but as embodied sensation embedded within form.
Surface Memory – Norwegian Crafts & Ceramica Suro Residency, 2025-2026
Material Memory (Accumulation), 2021-2026
2.5 Dimensions, 2021
Captions
- My Deepest Blue: landscape II, 2026, glazed ceramics, 90.9 x 121.2 cm, photo by Santiago Vega
- Process documentation at Ceramica Suro Residency, 2026, photo by Santiago Vega
- My Deepest Blue: Untitled, 2026, glazed ceramics, 90.9 x 121.2 cm, photo by Santiago Vega
- Materiality I (Landscape), 2022-3, glazed ceramics with glass, 50 x 60 cm
- Unfolding Comes to Rest II, 2026, glazed ceramics, 60 x 60 cm (each), photo by Santiago Vega
- Sustaining Memory and History, 2025, glazed porcelain, 21 x 30 x 6 cm, photo by Thomas T.
- Green Light Beneath, 2024-5, glazed ceramics, 7 x 22 x 3 cm, photo by Thomas T.
- When the Sky Breathes, the Water Listens, 2025, glazed porcelain, 23 x 40 x 6 cm, photo by Thomas T.
- Reflections in the Current, 2026, glazed ceramics, 42 x 40 x 85 cm, photo by Santiago Vega
- The Blooming Vessel, 2026, glazed ceramics, 40 x 35 x 60 cm, photo by Santiago Vega
- Goryeo Celadon Re-born in 21st-Century Mexico, 2026, glazed ceramics, 30 x 30 x 82 cm, photo by Santiago Vega
- Beneath, Many Tales II (That which breathes with us), 2026, glazed ceramics, 17 x 22 x 44 cm, photo by Santiago Vega
- Enfolding Currents – Foundations, 2026, glazed ceramics, 23 x 35 x 56 cm, photo by Santiago Vega
- Time of Observation, 2023-5, glazed ceramics with gold, 29 x 16 x 24 cm, photo by Thomas T.
- Winter Butterfly, 2023-2024, glazed ceramics, 30 x 30 x 27 cm, photo by Thomas T.
- Blue Cobalt in 2022, 2022, glazed ceramics, 40 x 20 x 50 cm
- Blue Cobalt in 2023, 2023-2024, glazed ceramics with cobalt oxide, 36 x 21.5 x 31 cm, photo by Thomas T.
- Wishes, 2021, glazed ceramics, 19 x 30 x 13 cm
- In between, 2020, glazed ceramics, 34.5 x 31.5 x 7.2 cm, photo by Heesoo Park
- Untitled, 2020, glazed ceramics, 31.5 x 27 x 3.8 cm, photo by Heesoo Park
- My day, 2020, glazed ceramics, 26 x 27 x 5 cm, photo by Heesoo Park
- 4 different shapes, 2020, glazed ceramics, 66 x 48 x 5.5 cm, photo by Heesoo Park
- Unused I, 2021, glazed ceramics, various dimensions, photo by Heesoo Park
- Blue bottle, 2021, glazed ceramics, 26 x 31 x 4.5 cm, photo by Heesoo Park
