Ara Koh ( she/her )

I speak Korean, English, and Clay. My studio practice is a tactile language. Through the medium of clay, I explore memory, honesty, and reflection, a balance between polarities: light and heavy, dense and loose, ephemeral and concrete. From this delicate dance, I create forms ranging from sculptural depth to planar compositions. I make landscape with landscape. It evokes a connection to geologic time and the transformative power of the earth itself. I use the very material of the ground to question humanity's relationship with Mother Earth. I reflect on how the earth sustains us and, in turn, how I locate myself within the expanse of natural time and its human-shaped time. My practice is deeply performative, a reckoning with both the external world and my inner self. I question how the earth holds humanity, and in doing so, I seek my place at the intersection of natural and human-shaped time. I ask: how do I connect time, place, and earth? Am I the connector? I dig. My process begins with digging. The act itself, often perceived as a masculine endeavor, allows me to claim my position. As a foreign woman of Asian descent, I assert my authority as I dig into American soil. The intensity of the labor, its repetitiveness, and a palliative obsessiveness inform my understanding of humanity. It asks about my identity as an artist, a daughter, and a human in the most honest and genuine way.

Ara Koh was born in Seoul, South Korea from a fashion designer mother, and an industrial designer father. She received her BFA in Ceramics and Glass from Hongik University, Seoul, South Korea in 2018, and was an exchange student at California State University, Long Beach in 2016. Ara graduated with an MFA in Ceramic Art at New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2020. Her works are installations claiming space. The intensity of the labor, repetitiveness, and palliative obsessiveness manifested in her sculpture brings a fresh reveal to the ageless themes of body, architecture-shelter and landscape.​ Her works had been exhibited in South Korea and in the United States. Ara received numerous awards including the Minister of Foreign Affairs Honor by the Korean government. Her works are collected by Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, Daekyo Culture Foundation, Winell Corporation in Korea, and many personal collectors. Ara Koh currently lives and works in Washington DC.