I think what I’m doing these days is to make (an) ‘image’ of these comedies. Those performances consider “the suffering and reality of the people through humor and satire while arousing the excitement of onlookers,” she says, explaining further: Zany and outlandish in expression, the portraits are a playful mix of confusion and jest that Yoon derives from traditional Korean comedies, called madangnori. Adding color and depth, the threads “can be seen or felt like internal conflicts, external stimuli, umbilical cord, blood vessels, sagging skin, hair, or time as a point of each viewer,” the artist says. Her photographic portraits are printed on roughly cut pieces of canvases and then overlaid with rows of tight stitches and loose strings that drip from an eye or loop across a face.
The cheeky, uncanny works that comprise Yoon Ji Seon’s ongoing Rag Face series bring the knotted, twisting, and generally convoluted entanglements of a subject’s psyche to the forefront. All images © Yoon Ji Seon, courtesy of CRAIC AM, shared with permission “Rag face #21004” (2021), sewing on fabric and photography, 112 x 73 centimeters.
Until then, shop available pieces on Etsy-she also has an update slated for mid-December-and follow her latest pieces on Instagram. Long is hosting an annual open house at her studio next month and will show a body of work at Charlie Cummings Gallery in July of 2022. A lot of times I have a focal point like an animal or insect and then I’ve framed it with other designs,” the artist says. “I love the flowing lines, and I love the idea of framing a picture on my pots. Whether a vase or wide-mouthed jar, the whimsical sculptures are brimming with color and textured details. “The relationship between the glazes that are inside the vectors, the shapes made by the slip trailing, are really important in how they’re divided and how they sit next to each other,” she says, noting that the process is particularly meticulous because it involves applying the material to each intricate, ribbed pattern and delicate outline.
She uses slip trailing to add tactile decorative elements to the piece like small spheres, handles, or raised linework. The resulting forms are evocative of both flora and fauna and traditional pottery, although Long’s sculptures emphasize smooth, sinuous walls and squiggly bases rather than angled edges. “I usually sit for a second and look at the piece and see which way I can push it out or in.” From her studio in rural Kansas, the artist throws simple ceramic cylinders that she contorts into supple butterfly wings, curved chrysalises, or vases with embellished handles.“When it comes off the potter’s wheel, that’s just the beginning,” she tells Colossal. Honoring the humble shape of the vessel is at the center of Carol Long’s practice. All images © Carol Long, shared with permission