Young Sook Park

In the 1980s, Korean artist Lee Ufan visited Park's gallery and was inspired by her porcelain pieces. Under Lee's mentorship, Park began a long artistic relationship. They experimented with aesthetics and blending painting with ceramics. Lee used minimalistic, calligraphic brushstrokes in cobalt blue to decorate Park's ceramic forms. The end result expresses a mediation between form, shape and color.

Park was born in Gyeongju, Korea, an area rich with Joseon history and culture. Growing up, Park enjoyed visiting antique shops to collect things and curate little displays. She was praised for having a good aesthetic eyes at a young age. Park did not receive a traditional art school training. In adulthood, she married a gallery owner and, in her early 30s, began ceramics as a hobby. She started taking more serious classes as her children grew and went to school. Her talent was recognized and she was motivated by her teachers to continue. She quickly met with success at her gallery shows. She went to Japan to study color and form. Her mentors encouraged her to work with porcelain despite its challenging aspects. Artist Lee Ufan challenged her to gain skills by making a tea set and dinner set in porcelain to hone her skills. In 1979, she founded the Park Young Sook Ceramic Studio in Gyunggi-do.

Park Young-sook (박영숙, born 1947), professionally goes by Young Sook Park or YSP, is a Korean ceramic artist known for her large, porcelain moon jars (a vessel popular in the late Joseon era). Park's contemporary interpretation of the moon jar melds traditional artisan traditions with her unique aesthetic sensibilities of color, form, and proportion. Her minimalist aesthetic and translation of porcelain has contributed to the expansion of meaning, importance, and popularity of contemporary Korean ceramics on a global scale.