Hooks-Epstein Galleries is pleased to present the work of ceramicist, Hayun Surl, with a summer exhibition titled "Liminal Figures". The exhibition, which opens on Saturday, June 28, 2025, will mark the first presentation of Surl’s work with the gallery; an Artist Talk will take place at 4:00PM, followed by the Opening Reception from 5:00-7:00PM. The exhibition will continue through July 26, 2025.
The artwork of Hayun Surl explores cultural fluidity and adaptation, using ceramics as a form of record-keeping and self-examination. In "Liminal Figures", Surl reflects on the in-between spaces—between identities, places, and experiences—where meaning is shaped and reshaped. These ceramic forms inhabit this threshold, capturing the tension and reciprocity between interior and exterior, content and container, and self and society.
Hand built and high-fired, the physical vessels function as enduring metaphors—records of memory, influence, and belonging shaped by, and still shaping, Surl’s evolving Korean identity. Through intuitive and deliberate decisions, each gesture in clay is a layered response to presence, contemplation, and transformation, allowing the past to inform the present in enduring, evocative ways.