It’s a Pleasure to Meet You!

Artist list

Wu Ching Chih, Akhihiro Ikeyama, Heejoo Kim, Sooyeon Kim, Takashi Kojima, Xiao Liu, Jungeun Park, Fumiki Taguchi, Carissa Wen-Hsien Hsu, Shu-Lin Wu, Wen-Miao Yeh

The show, aptly titled, “It’s a Pleasure to Meet You!” brings together unique viewpoints of 3 Korean, 3 Japanese, 4 Taiwanese and 1 Chinese contemporary art jewelers. While no one artist’s work can come to symbolize an entire culture, each participant explains their personal and distinct world through unique use of material, traditional technique, and gendered perspective. By exhibiting these disparate works collectively we hope to present a sample of the uniqueness in the East Asian voice of art jewelry, while simultaneously introducing a train of thought or glimpse towards future, regional movements.

Shu-Lin Wu (Taiwan) applies ceramic as a way to address the dichotomy between oriental and western culture. Wen-Hsien Hsu (Taiwan) investigates the marriage of obsidian and geometry. Wen-Miao Yeh (Taiwan) creates architecturally inspired, organic three dimensional forms in cut plastic. Ching-Chih Wu (Taiwan) uses enamel to break through traditional metalworking boundaries.
Takashi Kojima (Japan) reclaims cultural artifacts, in the form of plastic model injection molding sprues, to express memories and modern societal behavior. Akihiro Ikeyama (Japan) sets horn and antler as if it were a precious stone as a means to pay homage to the natural world. Fumiki Taguchi (Japan) captures humanities dramatic struggle through tangled cast collages.
Xiao Liu (China) poses questions with humor; “Am I wearing a ring? A brooch?“ while subtly challenging jewelry’s intended communicative function.

Jungeun Park (Korea) tells a story of the ‘meaning of space’ and ‘communication through space'. Sooyeon Kim (Korea) pays homage to faint memories by creating faceted stone-like physical ornaments from digital images. Heejoo Kim (Korea) creates “traces”; human artifacts that join the past and present together through their imbued witness of repeated creation and destruction.

It has been real delight to bring these artists together, and we anticipate a shared sense of enjoyment upon your experience with the work as well.


About the Gallery
Gallery Baum, which specializes in contemporary art jewelry, opened in 2006 in Heyri, South Korea. We hold exhibitions of invited artists and permanent exhibition of Jung-gyu Yi to introduce modern and contemporary jewelry to South Korea. And We are also running a special exhibition program annually to support active artists.
The owner and director of Gallery Baum, Jung-gyu Yi studied and majored in contemporary jewelry in Germany and France from 1979 to 1989. She shows her works through Gallery Baum and art fairs at home and abroad to communicate with the public.