Jiana Kim was born in Seoul, she lives and works in Seoul, South Korea.

To Jiana Kim, clay is a means through which she fulfills her desire to draw with “light.” In considering herself simply as an artist who works with clay-rather than a ceramic artist Jiana Kim had been contemplating on how to express her artistic inspiration from light. She was captivated by the infinite possibility of clay’s formative nature and began to devote her work to it. The fired clay sheets are then shattered into pieces and then are finally fixed onto a porcelain board.

Jiana Kim conducted countless experiments to solve the technical problems found in the process of creating her porcelain paintings, and only recently did these experiments yield satisfactory results. From conceiving the idea of drawing with clay to putting the idea into practice and getting a feasible output, the process called for much patience and endless repetitions. The artist had to repeat the arduous process of drawing on boards with clay water soaked paint brushes, firing the dry clay sheets, shattering them and sifting the porcelain pieces through sieves with varying size perforations.

Sharp-edged porcelain pieces of various shapes that resemble cracked egg shells are analogous to all matters in the world, and together, these pieces construct a small universe on the surface to which they are attached. Kim’s porcelain pieces may be metaphors for the 7 billion people residing on earth, or they may simply represent the beauty of assembly as a conventional value. Perhaps the artist used these differently shaped porcelain fragments as a way to discover the principle or order of universal beauty through the phenomenal realm in which numerous different phenomena and effects exist.

Jiana Kim’s porcelain paintings were originally inspired by the translucent quality of bone china. Yet Kim’s work also clearly reminds us of the translucent glow of light created by traditional Korean windows and doors, so I wish to relate her work to these windows and doors made with changhoji, traditional Korean paper. Korean windows and doors were designed to filter the strong sun rays and let soft light into the rooms. Implicit in this design are Korean ancestors’ wisdom and their spirit of moderation. It is perhaps by coincidence, but is it quick to conclude that Jiana Kim’s porcelain paintings remind us of Dansaekhwa (Korean monochrome painting), which has been receiving international spotlight? Considering the trend of later period Dansaekhwa painters using various industrial materials, it seems reasonable to place Kim’s porcelain paintings in the Dansaekhwa category.