Lydia SooJin Park (b. 1989) is an artist based between Seoul and Oslo. Working primarily with clay, her practice engages with memory, perception, and materiality through ceramic-based works that move between painting and sculpture. Her surfaces unfold as layered structures where image and object remain in constant negotiation, emphasizing the physical presence of fragile material as a carrier of temporal and emotional traces.
She received her BFA in Ceramics from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009–2013), her MA from Hongik University (2019–2021), and her MFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (2021–2023). In 2023, she was awarded the Student Prize by the Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts, and in 2024 she received the Talente Prize – Meister der Zukunft from the Chamber of Crafts for Munich and Upper Bavaria (HWK für München und Oberbayern), Germany. She has participated in residency programs including Arabia Art Department Society in Finland (2024), Senter for Keramisk Kunst in Norway (2025), Hanwha Foundation of Culture (2025), and Cerámica Suro in Mexico (2026).
In addition to exhibitions and residencies, Park has been commissioned to create permanent public ceramic works for Psykisk Helsenvern Nordbyhagen at Akershus University Hospital (AHUS HF) in Norway. The project, which includes both interior and exterior installations, is scheduled for completion in 2026.
Her work has been exhibited internationally across Europe, the United States, and Asia, and is included in institutional collections such as the National Museum of Norway (Nasjonalmuseet), KODE Art Museums of Bergen, Oslo Municipality, the National Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Trondheim, and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Visit Lydia SooJin Park’s website and Instagram page.
Featured work
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.
