“During the 1990s in her initial explorations of water and paper — elements that have become integral to her sculptural practice,— Jae Ko buried brown, utilitarian Kraft paper in the sand along the ocean’s tide line. She recovered the material only after the water had repeatedly washed over it, sculpting it into a new form that reflected its ability to both respond to and withstand nature’s impact. Ko has continued to pair the physical force of water, and more recently gravity, with the activity of her own hand to transform paper…it is the time-based metamorphosis at work in Ko’s art—by which an ephemeral and everyday substance becomes a thing with an aura more unusual and enduring— that transfixes observers.”

- Kristen Hileman, Independent Curator, Baltimore, MD

Former BMA Senior Curator of Contemporary Art

Jae Ko transforms paper into a living voice within her wall sculptures. She works to meticulously unwind and re-spool miles of adding machine tape before submerging it in water and pigment. As the sculpture dries, the paper swells into soft, biomorphic forms. With other pieces, Ko carefully manipulates rolled paper into elegant spirals that brim and cascade through space. Through her process of shaping, binding and glueing, Ko imbues her chosen medium with a soft vitality that evokes the rhythms and power of the natural world. Her visual language is deeply informed by both cultural forms and natural patterns, including calligraphy, traditional Asian hairstyles, geological formations, glaciers and architecture. The resulting sculptures reveal an innately familiar geometry -- one shaped by water and gravity, much like canyon walls carved over time by the forces of nature or the hidden etchings of a tree's lifetime.

Jae Ko has work in public collections nationwide including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Phillips Collection and ADM, Chicago. Ko has won awards and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, 2017; Maryland State Arts Council; The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, 2000; and the Anonymous Was A Woman Grant, 2012.