{"id":967,"date":"2026-03-13T15:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/?p=967"},"modified":"2026-04-24T16:25:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:25:41","slug":"in-life-forms-janny-baek-imagines-a-speculative-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/13\/in-life-forms-janny-baek-imagines-a-speculative-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"In \u2018Life Forms,\u2019 Janny Baek Imagines a Speculative Landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"In<\/p>\n

Joy Machine<\/a> is pleased to present\u00a0Life Forms<\/em>, a solo exhibition by Janny Baek<\/a>, on view from March 20 to May 9, 2026.<\/p>\n

How do we conceive of change? With fear, excitement, or uncertainty? As Janny Baek builds sculptural ceramics of speculative beings and imagined landscapes, she grapples with these questions. The work follows its own dream logic, one that accepts incongruity and dissonance as necessary to play and experimentation. Marbling hunks of colored clay, coiling bases, and molding a singular material into something new is part of an exploratory practice that embraces transformation and its often strange outcomes.<\/p>\n

\"detail
Detail of \u201cDream State\u201d (2024)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Life Forms<\/em>\u00a0emerges from this dual meaning, invoking both the act of creation and the fantastical works it produces. Neither wholly abstract nor representational, Baek\u2019s sculptures draw on natural structures and processes and invite us to question how we interpret the world around us. Recognizable forms like open blossoms, birds, and creatures are met with the unexpected. These lively components make even the more abstract works appear animate, like ambiguous organisms that might decide to scuttle away. They evoke something primordial and yet are exhilaratingly new.<\/p>\n

Baek paints in the way she sketches, as a means of developing ideas and visualizing their potential. For her ceramics, she incorporates hand building alongside the Japanese pottery technique known as\u00a0nerikomi, which involves splicing and designing patterns with strips of colored clay. \u201cMy material choices are a way of thinking about natural processes: color gradients as the continuous nature of change, a multitude of colors as potential, abundance, and vitality, and patterns as signals and communications,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Hovering between worlds, Baek\u2019s work populates a speculative environment in which beings morph, mutate, and blossom, their individual features forming an otherworldly lineage that\u2019s recognizable but not identical. While \u201ctemporarily and imperfectly captured in a moment of many possible transformations,\u201d the works beckon us into a world in which change is not only inevitable but also the most alluring proposition.<\/p>\n

Life Forms<\/em>\u00a0is Baek\u2019s Chicago debut. An opening reception<\/a> will be held on March 20, and the artist will be present.\u00a0See more from Baek previously on Colossal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"a
\u201cFuture Blossoms\u201d (2023), colored porcelain, 13 x 13 x 12 inches<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
\u201cLandscape\u201d (2025), colored stoneware with glazed interior, 15 x 8 x 8 inches<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"detail
Detail of \u201cDream State\u201d (2024)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
\u201cDream State 2\u201d (2025), stoneware, colored slip, porcelain, and glaze, 21 x 17 x 16 inches<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
Detail of \u201cLandscape\u201d (2025)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
\u201cPlant Life\u201d (2025), stoneware, colored stoneware, and glaze, 21.5 x 15 x 15 inches<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
Detail of \u201cPlant Life\u201d (2025)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member<\/a> today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article In \u2018Life Forms,\u2019 Janny Baek Imagines a Speculative Landscape<\/a> appeared first on Colossal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joy Machine is pleased to present\u00a0Life Forms, a solo exhibition by Janny Baek, on view from March 20 to May 9, 2026. How do we conceive of change? With fear, excitement, or uncertainty? As Janny Baek builds sculptural ceramics of speculative beings and imagined landscapes, she grapples with these questions. The work follows its own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=967"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":996,"href":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions\/996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}