Jane Yang D’Haene creates stoneware vessels drawn upon her Korean heritage. Though descended from traditional ceramic forms, such as the dal hang-ari or Moon Jar, D’Haene’s vessels depart from this history as she experiments with surface, lending her work a sculptural quality. Diverging from the smooth white exterior of the original vessels, D’Haene employs a variety of glazes and techniques to create texture, movement and tonal shifts. In doing so, D’Haene creates planetary forms, mimicking the earth from which the clay itself is drawn.
By working within a historical narrative, D’Haene is able to push the formal boundaries of her medium. This play between form and function elevates the work, introducing a conceptual challenge to the viewer. By confronting traditional forms, D’Haene highlights her own innovations. With her experimentation, D’Haene abandons a lifelong pursuit of perfection, instead creating beauty through imperfection. She expands upon the anomalies of form and color historically created during firing, a process that leaves much to chance. D’Haene embraces imperfection with intention, capturing its aesthetic value. She points towards the balance created between various opposing forces in her work. The vessels are simultaneously terrestrial and other-worldly, abstracted and functional. The work, though derived from tradition, is unconventional.
As all artists must, D’Haene reckons with the long history of her medium that came before her. She embraces the framework of this history while pushing against it, using tradition as a vehicle for innovation. D’Haene situates herself not as a designer working within the confines of her medium, but as an artist actively toying with the conceptual and technical possibilities of it.
Born in South Korea, Jane Yang-D’Haene draws upon her cultural heritage to create unexpected ceramic work. After moving to New York City in 1984, D’Haene attended the Cooper Hewitt School of Architecture from 1988 to 1992. Since beginning her work in ceramics in 2016, D’Haene has experimented with form and function, quickly establishing herself as an artist capable of innovating the medium. Her work has been widely exhibited and is part of several permanant collections, including the permanent collection of the White House. She is currently working on furniture, lighting, tableware, and many varieties of vessels. She truly believes all can be made in clay. D’haene lives with her husband and three children in Brooklyn, NY.