Yeodong Yun

Seoul-based artist Yeodong Yun works with metal in its full spectrum: shaped, brushed, coloured, and reconfigured into forms that move between sculpture, object, and installation. At the core of her practice is Jung Jung Dong (靜中動), a phrase she uses to describe her work: stillness that contains movement. Objects that appear stationary retain a subtle vibration, as if resonant with the passage of time.

Her influences reach deep into Korean history, particularly the gold crowns of the Shilla Dynasty, where fine metalwork embodied both fragility and permanence. The crowns’ suspended ornaments swayed with the movement of the body, suggesting life within form. Yun translates this sensibility into contemporary metalwork. Time is central to her language: her objects are conceived as if ‘shaken,’ echoing the inevitability of change and the instability that underlies even solid matter.

The Ball Series, developed for aarticles, draws these ideas into a sculptural yet functional collection. Each piece begins with a circular plate of brushed metal, its surface reflecting light with a restrained luminosity. Upon it rest spherical forms, polished but pared back, that guide balance and gravity. Their arrangement creates a rhythm of tension and release: static at first glance, yet suggestive of motion. The heaviness of the material is transformed into visual lightness, as if weight itself were in suspension.

Beyond their utility as tableware, these works operate as sculptural mediators of perception. They encourage the eye to follow curves, the hand to test balance, and the mind to reflect on the coexistence of order and chance. Their sculptural language carries echoes of other explorations into the physics of stillness and movement: Kim Tchang Yeul’s painted water drops, Adriaen Hanneman’s 17th-century portrait of a jeweller where adornment seems poised to tremble, or Harold Edgerton’s 1936 Milk Drop Coronet, a photographic study of suspended motion. Even the diffraction patterns of fiber analysis, where waves bend and scatter, find resonance in the displacements that Yun builds into her objects.

Through metal, a material often coded as rigid and enduring, Yeodong Yun composes atmospheres of delicacy and uncertainty. Surfaces catch light but never fully hold it, curves suggest movement but remain bound in stillness. The Ball Series embodies this paradox with clarity: sculptural yet functional, minimal yet alive, each object shaped by a philosophy that understands life as a balance between permanence and change.

References

1. Kim Tchang Yeul, Water Drops, c. 1970s

2. Adriaen Hanneman, Portrait of a Jeweller, 1636

3. FIBERS, Diffraction Analysis

4. Harold E. Edgerton, Milk Drop Coronet, 1936

Objects

  • Yeodong Yun Cup 15, silver-plated copper, hand-worked tactile surface, front view
    Yeodong Yun
    2.600,00 DKK
  • Yeodong Yun Dessert Picks, set of four handmade sculptural silver picks with flower tops at different stages of bloom
    Yeodong Yun
    Sold
  • Yeodong Yun Plate 2, silver-plated copper vessel with polished sphere detail, front view showing wide open surface
    Yeodong Yun
    1.650,00 DKK
  • Kettle by Yeodong Yun, silver-plated copper, curved spout, front view
    Yeodong Yun
    5.200,00 DKK
  • Mimosa Bucket by Yeodong Yun, copper and brass, front view
    Yeodong Yun
    5.700,00 DKK
  • Basket 3 by Yeodong Yun, copper and brass, curved handle, front view
    Yeodong Yun
    4.600,00 DKK
  • Yeodong Yun Fork, cast in sterling silver 925 with beaded handle and incised drawings, full vertical view
    Yeodong Yun
    1.450,00 DKK
  • Basket 2 by Yeodong Yun, hand-worked aluminum, front view
    Yeodong Yun
    2.600,00 DKK
  • Basket 4 by Yeodong Yun, copper and brass, hand-worked texture, front view
    Yeodong Yun
    7.000,00 DKK
  • Plate 4 by Yeodong Yun, oval silver-plated copper, front view
    Yeodong Yun
    1.650,00 DKK
  • Container 1 by Yeodong Yun, copper and brass leaf, front view
    Yeodong Yun
    3.600,00 DKK
  • Plate 1
    Yeodong Yun
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  • Cup 13
    Yeodong Yun
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  • Silver-plated copper cup by Yeodong Yun with spherical detail, Cup 8
    Yeodong Yun
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  • Cup 14
    Yeodong Yun
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  • Cup 9
    Yeodong Yun
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  • Tall silver-plated copper cup by Yeodong Yun with curved handle and sphere, Cup 10
    Yeodong Yun
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  • Cup 12
    Yeodong Yun
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  • Cup 11
    Yeodong Yun
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  • Dripper
    Yeodong Yun
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  • Pitcher 2
    Yeodong Yun
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  • Espresso Cup
    Yeodong Yun
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  • Cup 7
    Yeodong Yun
    Sold