INHWA LEE: AT THE EDGE OF LIGHT

Galerie Maria Wettergren is proud to present the solo exhibition of  Inhwa Lee, At the Edge of Light, which will be open from September 12th. to October 31st. 2025. Winner of numerous prestigious awards, Inhwa Lee is considered one of the most important Korean ceramicists today, with works in museum collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, UK; National Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea; Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan; and Yanggu Porcelain Museum, Korea. An Inhwa Lee porcelain piece is distinguished by its remarkable thinness, and infinite variations in density and transparency, inspired by the meeting of light and porcelain, observed through the artist’s studio windows. Of extreme delicacy, the walls of the ceramics reveal their internal structure, like the leaves of a tree. Their poetic beauty arises from a tension between gentle presence and dissolution into luminosity. Inspired by a special memory of a moment when the light permeated and animated one of her first thin vessels, making the mineral material come alive, and almost …looking like as if it had just crumbled…the artist has constantly been aiming to …make a pottery that is as thin as the light permeates…. Instead of the material, I wanted to put in the empty space. And I want to let only the light slowly penetrate into the empty space. The thin walls of the ceramic vessels offer themselves to the sun’s radiance, transforming mineral substance into silent song. Through this purification, the porcelain acquires an aerial quality that allows the passage of hours to show through its luminous body. Lee’s ceramic works are born from this encounter between meditative disposition and sure gesture.