NANCHANG: Originally from Seoul, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Donghyun Kang and his wife Hyunju Kim have been living in a village of Chinese city Jingdezhen for years, devoting themselves to the art of ceramics.
Jingdezhen, located in the eastern Jiangxi Province and known as China’s “porcelain capital,” has been dedicated to the craft for over 1,800 years. The city has been attracting people from across the country and overseas to settle down in pursuit of their art dreams.
Kang came to Jingdezhen Ceramic University (JCU) in 2013 for postgraduate study after graduating from Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SeoulTech) as a major in ceramics.
“My tutor recommended me to come to Jingdezhen and I was interested in the mud materials here, so I decided to come,” he said.
“I had many Korean schoolmates at JCU and most of them went back home after graduation to work in the field of ceramics,” he said.
However, Kang and his wife Kim, also a ceramist who graduated from SeoulTech, have remained in Jingdezhen where they run their own ceramic studio.
“I have been very interested in the art of Chinese ink painting,” Kang said, adding that the Chinese art has been a source of inspiration for him.
Many of his ceramic works, usually made of a mixture of different kinds of mud, feature patterns similar to the curves of mountains and waters in nature, showing a distinctive style of traditional Chinese ink painting.
Kim mainly focuses on making ceramic dessert tableware and porcelain paintings. She joins the local ceramic fair every week to sell her works, and uses the opportunity presented by the fair to also communicate with customers and other artists. –Agencies
