Joon Hee Kim

What do French patisserie and ceramics have in common? A lot, according to ceramic artist Joon Hee Kim. She worked as an art director in Seoul, Korea, before coming to Canada to study patisserie at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Ottawa. She became intrigued with ceramics after a tour of a ceramics studio, when she realized there were a lot of similarities between clay and dough.

“It was fascinating how the tools used for ceramics were very similar to the tools for baking. Most of all, the dough used in patisserie is very much like clay in characteristics. Whether it’s a dough or clay, it will have different outcomes depending on the maker because the forms can be shaped, and both have to be baked in fire — to complete the process is very similar.”

She went on to study ceramics at Sheridan College and then, in 2016, received a master in fine art from the Chelsea College of Arts in London, England. Her work has exhibited in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. For the next couple of months, she is participating in a residency at the Ceramic Centre in Berlin, Germany.

Some of Kim’s most recent work My Eyes Are on You is a stunning series of intricate ornamental heads. “The heads I work on are vessel forms, using coils and hand building as I would on traditional vessel,” Kim says. For larger-scale works, she uses sculpture clay and for the smaller heads, she works with porcelain.

“In its clay form porcelain is very fine and delicate to work with, so building a sculpture with porcelain can be very challenging and requires a thoughtful process. However, once the build is complete, porcelain is the strongest, and most brilliant clay of all.” Her works are all clay-based sculptures which include metal casting with bronze and aluminum, as well as using modern material such as silicone.

Her work will be in a solo exhibition this year at the Clay and Glass Gallery’s courtyard in Waterloo as a followup to the garden theme of last summer’s solo show at the Art Gallery of Burlington. You can also find her work at the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair this summer, and in the spring, her work will be exhibited and sold at the Craft Ontario Shop.