TURNING HEADS
Can a patisserie chef enjoy life as a ceramist?
Definitely.
“I feel that there is a lot of connection between the two,” says Joon Hee Kim, who swapped dough for clay. “My knowledge in patisserie was a big help in my ceramic studies.”
Her most recent exhibition is turning heads. Ten of Kim’s big ceramic sculptures of heads — and urns with heads — have popped up at the Art Gallery of Burlington. The exhibition, “My Eyes are on You,” is this summer’s courtyard installation.
Kim, 43, an award-winning ceramist who now lives in Oakville, exhibits locally and internationally. An art director in her native South Korea, she came to Canada and embarked on patisserie studies at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa. But then ceramics called. She ended up graduating from Sheridan College, and the Chelsea College of Arts in London, England.
“I’m always pleased to work with clay,” she says. “While some clay may be difficult to work with, depending on its type, it is a versatile material.”
Kim’s head series continues her interest in sculpting the human body. “This We Know” is an over-life-size free-standing head. It needs to be walked around since it boasts two stylized faces. The eyes are wide open on one side, closed on the other.
The top of the head is crowned with a circlet of smaller faces alternating with leaves. Stains enhance the golden lustre surface, lending a rough and weathered look.
A head this size raises the question: how big might the rest of the body be? Not that Kim intends to build the rest of the body soon. It took her two months to make the head. She used sculpture clay that came from Japan.
“It’s a large-size work requiring a structure to be built inside the piece, and waiting and working on the piece in phases was part of the process to ensure the piece didn’t collapse after its completion, which happens sometimes,” she tells me. “Once the piece is in a large kiln, it takes a full week to complete the firing. Including the gold lustre, I spent three weeks just for the firings.”
“You Will Do What You Say” comprises a pair of heads turned slightly toward each other.
The heads look opulent with their gold eyelids and floral-patterned head coverings. But Kim balances the ornate with the seemingly sullied by glazing the faces with stains and drips.
The heads rest on goblet-like pedestals with square bases.
The vessel shape is a potter’s basic shape. Kim thinks of the heads as vessels as well.
“The heads I work on are based on a vessel form and I use coils and hand building as if I’m working on a traditional vessel,” she explains.
Vessels and heads come together in Kim’s “Garden Urns.” Each of these sumptuous concoctions grows from a square base into a tall traditional type urn. Heads encircle the body. Garlands of cuplike rosettes hang above them. A small vase stands atop the urn, its body adorned with tiny cups.
“When I first went to a ceramics studio tour, it was fascinating how the tools used for ceramics are very similar to the tools for baking,” Kim recalls.
“Most of all, the dough used in patisserie is similar to clay. Whether it is dough or clay, it will have different outcomes depending on the maker, forms can be shaped, and they both have to be baked in fire to complete.”
Regina Haggo, art historian, public speaker, curator and former professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, teaches at the Dundas Valley School of Art. dhaggo@the spec.com Special to The Hamilton Spectator