This study focuses on the changing urban landscape of Seoul's old city center, aiming to permanently document it through the ceramic medium while exploring new potentials for artistic expression. The researcher’s interest in the transformation and d...
This study focuses on the changing urban landscape of Seoul's old city center, aiming to permanently document it through the ceramic medium while exploring new potentials for artistic expression. The researcher’s interest in the transformation and disappearance of cityscapes stems from personal experiences with redevelopment, which led this study to focus on Jongno and Euljiro, areas where distinct layers of change are visible. For this research, the historical transitions of Seoul and the evolution of its urban planning were examined. In particular, the study analyzed the enduring impact of the Colonial-era Urban Redevelopment Projects and post-1960s urban development on - 87 Seoul’s current structure. The researcher then heavily reflected these analytical findings in the resulting artworks. The case studies analyzed artworks by artists who offer significant insights into expressing urban landscapes through diverse media. These include Jung Jae-ho, who meticulously depicts marginalized old buildings with realistic detail; Alessio Trerotoli, who captures the city's temporal flow and abstract beauty through multiple-exposure photography; and Ko Myung-geun, who reconstructs architectural images by uniquely combining photography and sculpture. Through this analysis, the researcher explored the expressive possibilities of various media and established a clear direction for their own creative work. This study explores the techniques of ceramic painting on clay slabs, chosen to concentrate on pictorial expression over three-dimensional form. The artworks utilize the permanence of ceramics to represent Seoul's changing landscapes on flat slabs. In addition to conventional painting methods, the work applies principles from traditional Buncheong techniques, specifically johwa (carved decoration) and bakji (sgraffito). The sgraffito technique, in particular, not only creates linear expressions but also reveals sculptural textures through the act of carving. This process was made possible by using paper clay, a mixture of porcelain clay and paper pulp. Paper clay is crucial as it prevents warping and cracking while yielding a body of high porosity after the initial bisque firing. This porous quality makes the slab soft enough to be carved and shaped with precision. The permanence of ceramics is uniquely suited for archiving memories that fade over time. An image drawn on clay becomes an indelible entity through high-temperature firing (1250℃). This study, therefore, focuses on the inherent materiality of the - 88 ceramic medium—the permanence and unique qualities that clay acquires through firing. This characteristic, which preserves an image permanently under the glaze, is ideal for the artistic sublimation of disappearing cityscapes. By applying planar, pictorial representation, this study moves beyond the traditional, sculpture-oriented formal language of ceramics to explore the medium's potential for genre expansion and painterly expression. In doing so, this research seeks to establish its artistic significance by presenting a new perspective that captures the temporality and memory of a changing city through the ceramic medium.
Keywords: Seoul, Urban Landscape, Change, Building, Ceramic Painting