Jane Yang D'Haene | Becoming

JANE YANG D'HAENE

JANE YANG D'HAENE

BECOMING

TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY

BECOMING

“Becoming,you know,has two different meanings. Flattering or attractive, that’s not what I wanted to express with the work I’m sending to [Tayloe Piggott Gallery]. It’s about the process of coming to be something. While I’m making each piece, I become something else.”

Jane Yang D’Haene has worn many hats. She’s moved from architect and interior designer to entrepreneur to emerging artist in her short life, having achieved truly remarkable success in each avenue. The ability to adapt and succeed in unfamiliar environs runs as an undercurrent to D’Haene’s life leading up to her current existence as one of the most sought-after ceramicists in the world. But first, she had to become Jane.

make this work. I would only speak English, and I would become a real American teenager. So I became Jane.”

Becoming presents a selection of stoneware vessels drawn upon Jane Yang D’Haene’s 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.

“I came to America at age sixteen and I didn’t speak a word of English. The only thing I knew how to say was hello. I had a very, very difficult Korean name that nobody was able to pronounce. So a week or two after I started school, I decided to change my name. I decided I was going to

Ceramics were not an immediate click. D’Haene laughs, “I hated it. I am an extreme OCD neat person, I love all my clothes. Clay is flying everywhere—literal mud flying through the air. And everyone around me was making such beautiful work. I can’t even center. I can’t do anything.”

She became obsessed with mastering the skills of working with clay. With time, “I completely fell in love with the process.” Completely self-taught, Jane Yang D’Haene drew on a childhood of perfectionism and extraordinarily high parental expectations to create absolutely perfect vessels from the beginning. Working in celadon and white, she would throw out any vessel that did not fit her parameters of perfection.

“Growing up, we had moon jars and many ceramics in our house in Korea. And I remember specifically, I broke one that my mom cherished. Shewasheartbroken.Iwasveryscared.Andwhen I started to make ceramics,I tried so many shapes and forms and created so many different vessels. And I realized I always went back to moon jars. It gave me comfort.”

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.

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

“In Korea, back then, they fluted, which is a lot smoother of a surface. This is my interpretation. I carve it out and insert different clays inside of that carved area. So my work is not just single stoneware—it’s many different layers of materials. Many people think my texture comes purely from clay,but most of the time it also comes from a mix of glazes. Some of the pieces I fire four or five

times in order to create that depth.”

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.

“The beauty is let the kiln decide how we should fire. I started to really use the moor jar as my canvas, where I start to paint with glaze, so when I open the kiln, there’s a surprise element. I’m pouring the glaze, but I cannot really control how the glaze will drip—it’s all accidental. Just taking the risk, that’s something new for me. I find that finally exciting and fun. Risk was not possible for me before.”

ceramic work. After moving to New York City in 1984, D’Haene attended the Cooper Hewitt School of Architecture from 1988 to 1992. She went on to work as an interior designer for a major architectural firm, honing her eye for masterful design. However, D’Haene’s own work has evolved past this realm. 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. D’Haene often works within the language of traditional Korean ceramic forms, using parts of this long-standing history as a vehicle for experimentation. She builds upon these forms, integrating contemporary techniques, colors, and textures to create sculptural vessels that toe the line between art and design. Through this manipulation of her medium and reinterpretation of her history, D’Haene creates one-of-a-kind objects that breathe new life into a centuries old craft.

Born in South Korea, Jane Yang-D’Haene draws upon her cultural heritage to create unexpected

Words by Katie Franklin

“The beauty is let the kiln decide how we should fire.Istartedtoreallyusethemoorjarasmycanvas, where I start to paint with glaze, so when I open the kiln, there’s a surprise element. I’m pouring the glaze, but I cannot really control how the glaze will drip—it’s all accidental. Just taking the risk, that’s something new for me. I find that finally exciting and fun. Risk was not possible for me before.”

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

20 x 20 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

21 1/2 x 19 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

13 x 17 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

10 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

19 1/2 x 19 x 19 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

18 x 16 x 16 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

10 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

15 1/2 x 13 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

10 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

11 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

12 x 11 1/2 x 11 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

11 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

10 3/4 x 10 x 10 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

11 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

12 x 11 x 11 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

10 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

15 x 15 x 15 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

9 x 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

18 1/2 x 19 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

17 x 13 x 13 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

7 1/2 x 6 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

10 x 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches

UNTITLED, 2022

Stoneware, slip and glaze

16 x 16 1/4 x 16 1/4 inches

This catalog compliments Jane Yang D'Haene’s Exhibition BECOMING 17 DECEMBER 2022 - 29 JANUARY 2023 | Tayloe Piggott Gallery © 2022 All Rights Reserved