Janny Baek is an artist and architect born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in Queens, New York. Janny received her BFA in ceramics from Rhode Island School of Design, and worked as a sculptor in animation and toys before completing her Masters in Architecture at Harvard University, and counts her experiences in craft, pop culture, industrial design and architecture as the major influences on her current work in ceramics. After founding her firm, McMahon-Baek Architecture, in 2014, Janny returned to making sculptures and started her ceramics practice in in 2019. Janny currently lives and works in lower Manhattan with her husband and their two daughters.
Focusing on themes of matter in transformation, my work explores agency, instability, and the tension that is inherent in our continuously changing relationship with nature and technology. Working in the realm of traditional hand building and nerikomi techniques, my practice is based on play and experimentation as serious inquiry. The pieces are embodied as transitional moments caught in a moment of infinite variability- hybrid spirits that explore the limits of expectations and cultural codes.