Artist Talk: Portage Premier Award Winners

Join the 2018 Portage Premier Award winners, Sang-Sool Shim and Keum-Sun Lee, for a fascinating artist talk at Te Uru on Saturday 9 February.

Learn about their unique mix of historic and contemporary techniques, based on research into 10th-century and 15th-century Korean pottery, and the intriguing story of how they came to be potters based in the forested hills on the edge of the Wait?kere Ranges.

The local West Auckland duo took out the top award for their collaborative piece, In the Beautiful Dream, described as "a powerful piece in form and concept" by this years' judge Bari Ziperstein. “Shim and Lee’s large-scale vessel has an unexpected presence – with its undulating thinly coil-built bodily form, matched with its delicate flower carved surface and meticulous glaze application."

The winning work was initially built and altered on a potter’s wheel, with free-hand carved details on the surface and inlaid colour. Shim and Lee describe their work as a scene from the perspective of “a beautiful woman who goes into the world with a throbbing heart. In her dream, the world looks like a flower garden, which is full of excitement with dazzling blossoms. Fully-leaved green trees sway in the night.”

Sang-Sool Shim and Keum-Sun Lee are Korean potters and ceramic artists. Shim is a Grand Master 9th Dan of Martial Art and Lee has a PhD. Working with both 10th-century and 15-century techniques of Korean pottery, Sang Sool and Keum Sun have adapted these traditions and added colours to give a contemporary aspect to their creations.

They have had many successful exhibitions in Korea, Austria, Croatia and New Zealand and have won Portage Ceramic Awards in New Zealand for 10 years continuously, as well as international awards in Austria and Korea. Their collaborative works are included in the Austria Museum and Portage Trust New Zealand Collections. In November 2018, their ceramic sculpture will be exhibited as part of Sculpture on the Shore.