Oh Jeisung (b. 1987) has been reinterpreting the sculptural legacy inherited from the past by bringing it into the context of the present and transforming it into new forms of sculpture. To this end, he combines traditional sculpting techniques with contemporary methods and materials—such as 3D printing and video—conducting a formal exploration of sculpture that bridges the past and the present.

Oh Jeisung’s perspective—rooted in finding the starting point of his work in the art of the past—originates from a deeply personal and emotional experience. His 2019 solo exhibition 《The Motion Lines》 at SONGEUN Art Cube, for instance, stemmed from a moment when he unexpectedly encountered a sculpture of a woman by Alberto Giacometti in Korea and was moved to tears.
 
Struck by the vivid bronze texture of the work, Oh felt a visceral sense of how the piece might have been created, and he vividly imagined Giacometti’s studio in Switzerland. In that emotionally charged moment of connection through the artwork, Oh felt as though he had constructed a shared space and time with an artist from another era and place.

This experience led the artist to imagine a kind of "time travel" that transcends the dominance of linear time, allowing different times and spaces to overlap. In this solo exhibition, Oh connected everyday experiences of space, time, memory, and the complex relationships formed within them through visual media such as video and photography.
 
In doing so, he invited the audience to embark on a journey through a multidimensional and multi-layered narrative—a form of time travel that moves freely across temporal and spatial boundaries.

Since 2020, Oh Jeisung has been developing the ‘INDEX’ series, in which he recreates various forms of traditional Korean vernacular sculpture in ceramic. Traveling across the country, he has conducted field research on unnamed Buddha statues and other non-designated cultural assets that exist outside institutional protection. Through this process, he has focused on the aesthetic value, function, and embedded narratives of these traditional sculptures.
 
He later reconstructs the sculptures from memory, drawing inspiration from the East Asian painting concept of sayi (寫意). Sayi refers to the practice of expressing a subject not through literal depiction, but through one’s own interpretation and emotional response—an approach that contrasts with hyeongsa (形寫), which emphasizes precise and realistic representation.

Embracing the attitude of sayi, Oh Jeisung does not seek to replicate what he sees with exact fidelity. Instead, his work prioritizes the impressions and emotions he experienced during his field research. Through this process of reinterpretation, the imagery becomes transformed—highlighting the distinctive humor inherent in traditional Korean sculpture and expanding into anthropomorphic representations of animals.

A representative work from his ‘INDEX’ series, INDEX_Dabogak Landscape (多寶閣景圖) (2020–2024) is a work that focuses on the point at which two distinct cultures are received and reinterpreted. The piece draws from the historical trajectory of the Western "Cabinet of Curiosities"—the prototype of the modern museum—which was imported into Qing China and transformed into the Dabogak Gyeongdo (a visual representation of a treasure-filled pavilion), and later reimagined in Joseon Korea as the Chaekgado still-life genre.
 
The artist modeled his work on an actual Dabogak Gyeongdo, assembling within his own version of a Dabogak a collection of sculptures reinterpreted in his visual language. These sculptures were based on non-designated cultural properties he personally visited and documented, reproduced using 3D scanning technology. The shelves of the display cabinet in which the sculptures are placed were constructed from industrial materials, specifically aluminum profiles.

Beginning with INDEX_Chocheon-ri Maitreya (2022), Oh Jeisung began actively incorporating 3D scanning and printing technologies into his practice. This work was based on a non-designated, ownerless cultural artifact located in Jillye-myeon, Gimhae. After 3D scanning the Maitreya statue on-site, the artist reconstructed it using 3D software, and then physically re-materialized the form using ceramics—a traditional material.
 
The completed work integrates multiple methodologies: the photographic approach (scanning), the digital modeling process (shaping in 3D software), the sculptural technique (molding), the ceramic process (firing), and the additive method of 3D printing (layering).

This work represents a formal experiment that explores a fundamental shift in sculptural production. While the sculpture incorporates contemporary technologies and retains the volume and texture of the original, it departs from traditional methods: its scale and form are altered, the additive process of building up clay over an internal armature is absent, and the scanned data is printed and constructed in a manner akin to photography.
 
Inside the translucent Maitreya sculpture, a message is embedded containing digital information—such as GPS coordinates, dimensions, and photographs—collected during the scanning and documentation process. This embedded data ensures that the sculpture can be restored in the future, even if damaged or eroded, based on the archived digital record of the original.

In addition, a 3D-printed sculpture depicting an imagined, non-existent interior space is incorporated into the work. Through this, the artist invites viewers to envision how "tradition"—embodied in non-designated cultural artifacts that continue to survive and evolve in everyday urban settings, unlike state-designated relics preserved in museums—might be newly situated within virtual spaces of the future. The work explores how these artifacts can be repositioned, their historical gaps revealed, and their continuity reestablished across time and space.

The ‘INDEX’ series experiments with the transfer of information by either reconstructing traditional vernacular sculptures from memory based on field observations or digitizing them through contemporary technologies and then manually re-sculpting them.
 
Building upon the free-form aesthetics of vernacular sculpture, Oh Jeisung’s recent sculptural practice has evolved to engage with the more refined forms of Korean modern sculpture. Much like his ‘INDEX’ works that approach traditional vernacular sculpture with a sayi mindset, the artist reinterprets the historical contexts and sensibilities of earlier sculptors’ works through his own unique sculptural language.

For example, Fertile Earth (肥沃土) (2023) is a reinterpretation of Scorched Earth (焦土) (1967), a sculpture by an earlier generation artist, Park Suk Won. While the original work Scorched Earth depicts a war-ravaged land through an incised relief, Oh Jeisung reconstructs this imagery in Fertile Earth using a raised relief.
 
This approach was inspired by Park Suk Won’s past interview, in which he described Korea’s dark historical period as a “brief passage through a dark tunnel.” Accordingly, Oh titled his work Fertile Earth to express a meaning opposite to that of Scorched Earth.

Part of the work was created using 3D scanning data personally captured by the artist, while the remaining sections were constructed with contemporary architectural and industrial materials in inflated forms. By employing these modern, standardized, and quantifiable materials—absent in the past—the artist seeks ways for the sensibilities of the past to connect and coexist with the present through his work.

The ‘Memory of Sculpture’ series (2024) was created as a tribute to the history of Korean sculpture. Referencing Oh Sang Wook’s Memory of Suppression (1997), the work depicts three figures walking in a line, each carrying an object on their heads.
 
One of the objects atop the figures’ heads is a 3D-printed fragment of the face from Kim Bokjin’s Main Buddha Statue of the Maitreya Hall at Geumsansa Temple (1938), a pioneering work in modern Korean sculpture. Another is packaging material discarded from construction supplies. Through these elements, the artist dramatically expresses the will to inherit Korean sculptural traditions while simultaneously deconstructing and integrating distinctions between tradition and modernity, center and periphery.

Oh Jeisung continuously explores ways for traditional Korean sensibilities to survive through contemporary technologies, carrying forward the spirit and unique aesthetic values of his predecessors preserved in sculpture. His work, which summons what lies beneath the surface of form into the present time and space, serves to revive the lost values and spirit that were fragmented and overlooked during the process of categorizing Korean sculptural history according to Western art historical standards.
 
By discovering the free-spirited genius (gisae, 奇才) embedded in traditional vernacular sculpture and the temporal texture and emotions of modern Korean sculpture, Oh Jeisung connects the past and present through his work. This enables tradition and history to be felt not as a “disconnected past,” but as a “continuous present.”

 “The past and present are networked together through the medium of the artwork. I understand this as an affective relationship where the histories of both sides arise.”  (Oh Jeisung, Portrait of an Artist | Oh Jeisung (오제성) | Documentary | Riveruns) 

Oh Jeisung holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Three-Dimensional Art from the College of Fine Arts at Kookmin University, South Korea, as well as an MFA in Fine Arts from OTIS College of Art & Design in the United States. His solo exhibitions include 《Ghost Protocol》 (Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2024), 《Joyful Sculpture》 (The Square, Seoul, 2023), 《Playful Sculpture》 (space xx, Seoul, 2023), 《Ceramic Art Andenne》 (Ceramic Art Andenne, Belgium, 2022), and 《The Motion Lines》 (SONGEUN Art Cube, Seoul, 2019), among others.
 
Oh has also participated in numerous group exhibitions such as 《Worlds Beyond Extraordinary》 (Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Ansan, 2025), Sculpture City, Seoul 2024, 《OFF THE PAGE》 (Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon, 2022), 《Sculptural Impulse》 (SeMA Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, 2022), the Korean International Ceramic Biennale 2021, and 《Summer Love》 (SONGEUN, Seoul, 2019).
 
He has been a participant in residency programs including Goyang Artist Residency Haeum (2023), Ceramic Art Andenne (Andenne, Belgium, 2022), Ateliers des Arques (France, 2022), and K’ARTS STUDIO at Korea National University of Arts (2021).

References

• 아트바바, 송은아트큐브 – [서문] The Motion Lines (Artbava, SONGEUN Art Cube, [Preface] The Motion Lines)
• 비애티튜드, 조각에 깃든 조상님의 멋을 이해하면 얼마나 좋을까요~
• 아트바바, space xx – [서문] Playful Sculpture (Artbava, space xx – [Preface] Playful Sculpture)
• 서울시립미술관, [작품설명글] 조각충동 (Seoul Museum of Art, [Artwork Description] Sculptural Impulse)
• 금호미술관, Ghost Protocol (Kumho Museum of Art, Ghost Protocol)
• 조각도시서울, 조각에 대한 기억 1, 3 – 오제성 (Sculpture City, Seoul, Memory of Sculpture 1, 3 – Oh Jeisung)
• Riveruns, Portrait of an Artist | Oh Jeisung (오제성) | Documentary