Soojong Ree (1948, Korea) graduated from Hongik University in Seoul in 1979 with an MFA in ceramic art. He has been a lecturer at well-known art academies such as Hongik and Seoul National Universities for over 40 years and is considered a master of modern Buncheong ceramics. In addition to numerous solo exhibitions, he has participated in national group exhibitions such as ‘From the Fire: Contemporary Korean Ceramics’ at the Pacific Asia Museum, Los Angeles, U.S.A., 2005, ‘Tradition Transformed: Contemporary Korean Ceramics’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, U.K. in 2011, and ‘Korea Now!’ at the Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France in 2015. His works are in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, and the National Art Museum of China, Beijing.
For Soo Jong Ree, working with ceramics begins with an understanding of the nature of material: namely the clay that he traditionally digs and processes himself in the Korean mountains. Unusual today, this extreme commitment to the very physicality of the medium, is carried through to his works by means of a robust, gestural expressionism, both in the construction of his forms and their decoration, that is often said to invoke the spirit of 15th century Buncheongpottery; a white painted, blue-grey stoneware, with spontaneous yet technically accomplished and unpredictable mark-making. Ree’s works transform this legacy into a language of signs, at times constructive and at others decaying - the omission of glaze leaving patches of coarse clay visible in the surfaces of the work, contrasting with layers of thickly glazed white engobe, and vigorously applied iron-brown pigments.
Buncheong, which means “to cover” or “to powder,” refers to blue-gray pottery decorated with white clay slip. Seven principal methods were documented in the 15th and 16th century Joseon Dynasty: inlaying (sanggam); stamping (inwha); carving (jowha); sgraffito (bagji); painting with iron-brown pigments (cheolhwa); the application of white clay by brush (kyuyal), and dipping in liquid engobe (dumbung). Forgotten due to the popularization of porcelain, these techniques were only rediscovered in the modern era by 20th century artists such as Kwang Cho Yoon. Other famous Buncheong artists include Sungjae Choi, Daehoon Kim, and Sangho Shin. Sung Jin Cho.