Shin Sang-ho was born in 1947 and is an internationally renowned artist and pioneer for Korean craft and design, with work featured in the British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Trust Collection. He is the former Dean at Seoul’s Hongik University College of Fine Arts, and was a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Art in London from 1995-1997.
His love for ceramics began when he visited the kiln sites at Icheon in 1965, where he saw how ceramic artists work - in a 2019 interview for EBS, Shin stated that:
“Visiting there gave me an indescribable feeling of community difficult to find in the city. It was then that I knew straight away that this was for me”
Throughout his career, Shin has had to overcome misjudgements from his peers for his embracing of modern and contemporary design and techniques. His critics labelled him a traitor, as he diverted away from the traditional Korean ceramic styles and firing methods. While Shin acknowledg- es the value of tradition, he believes that not every potter is destined for that path - diversity and acceptance of change is equally as valuable.
It is for this reason that Shin is famous for his innovation and uniqueness within the field of ceramic art. This uniqueness also manifests in his firing methods. Where traditional ceramicists in Korea use wood-firing, Shin became infa- mous for his acceptance of the gas kiln - a technique which he first learned in Japan. When asked why he prefers the gas kiln over the traditional Korean kiln, the artist emphasises the success rate of the ceramic pieces in comparison to the wood-fired kiln.