“Han-soom presents the bold yet delicate art of Grace Han and Gloria Jue-Youn Han. Korean ceramic vessels contrast with clay objects that are simultaneously familiar and unexpected, occupying the gallery from floor to ceiling. In this exhibition, the two artists’ evocative pottery—exemplified by Grace Han’s seemingly weightless quilted jars and Gloria Han’s intricately carved bottles—is put into conversation with installations of Grace’s interactive hexagonal forms and Gloria’s moulded, relief-carved baseboards.  

The artists draw on the technological and artistic traditions of Korean ceramics through the teachings of elders, working with a distinct visual iconography and the legacy of form and colour. Both artists grapple, in different ways, with Western concepts of “contemporary” and “traditional,” which fail to encapsulate the complexities of their art and lives.  

The exhibition’s title, Han-soom—chosen by artist Gloria Han—imperfectly translates into English as “a sigh.” This release of breath and emotion sometimes signals relief and other times exasperation. For the artists, this freeing exhalation symbolizes their resistance to categorization and containment. In the artists’ powerful hands, beauty is an act of resistance, craft is a conceptual way of thinking and the body is a way to carry forward tradition.  

Grace Han, originally from South Korea and now living in Canada, and Gloria Han, a first-generation Korean Canadian daughter of immigrants, find inspiration in their personal diasporic experiences to create striking artworks that assert the strength of ceramics and its makers. The artists share a deep dedication to ceramics and a commitment to learning and respecting traditional practices, while continuing to push the “mechanics of making” and creating their own visual vocabulary. Gloria poetically explains how the “survival of traditional Korean ceramics is a story of love,” and each artist carries this love of community, culture and clay within their work. By bringing their creations together, the Han-soom exhibition speaks to the transformative power of clay as a material and a means for communication. “

Katherine Dennis, curator, Art Gallery at Evergreen