With EDIT: STORIES, SILCO HAUS sits with makers who carry their own relationship to material and meaning. Jihyeon is a ceramicist who also works as a digital product designer. Her ceramic practice begins with a simple gesture: giving objects eyes. What follows is a conversation about what that gesture holds.
Books, eyes, and dried flowers © SILCO HAUS
Eyes give life
Jihyeon has always drawn eyes. As a child, she doodled them everywhere without thinking much about why. She sees faces in objects. A cup has an expression. A vase has a mood. It is not something she chose to do. It is just how things appear to her.
When she first started working with clay, she attached a pair of eyes to a vessel. Something shifted. The object stopped being an object. It felt like it was looking back.
"I put eyes on it once, and the feeling it gave — like it was alive. I just kept going."
Stacked, looking out © SILCO HAUS
She has thought about why this gesture matters so much to her. It comes back to light and presence. Without light, there is nothing to see. Without eyes, there is no recognition. The moment two gazes meet, both presences become real. You are here. It is there. That exchange is what she wants her work to carry.
"The moment someone's eyes meet yours, suddenly it becomes clear — you're here, and they're there. I wanted to give that to my ceramics."
Sketches for new pieces © SILCO HAUS
When she sells a piece, it does not feel like letting go of a product. It feels like sending someone off. She remembers who took each one. She thinks about where they ended up.
"They all have faces. It feels like sending someone away to a good home. Like adoption."
Eyes on the shelf © SILCO HAUS
Jeehey
She grew up in Gyeongsang Province in the south of Korea, where people speak in a dialect known for its warmth and directness. In Gyeongsang-do, full names are rarely used. Instead, people shorten them into nicknames, softened by the rhythm of the local accent. Jihyeon became Jeehey — not a chosen name, but the way people around her naturally said it. A sound shaped by the place she grew up in.
Jihyeon in the resting corner © SILCO HAUS
When she moved to Australia, the distance from Korea began to show in quiet ways. The language around her changed. The people who called her Jeehey were far away. She named her studio after that sound. Not as nostalgia, but as a way of keeping the connection alive.
"Living in Australia, the connection to Korea gets weaker. I wanted to keep the name people called me when I was young. It reminds me of where I come from."
Between questions © SILCO HAUS
That pull toward Korea runs through everything she makes. Her ideas often begin during trips home. A small detail noticed while travelling, a memory from childhood, a shape from Korean ceramic history that she cannot stop thinking about. Australia shapes the environment around her work. Korea shapes the history within it.
"My inspiration mostly comes from Korea. The history of Korean ceramics is so deep. The more I dig into it, the more I find."
The opening
For a year, Jihyeon searched for a direction. She knew she could not keep making the same forms. Repetition does not suit her. She needed something that could hold change within it.
The answer came from a Korean ceramic tradition called tugak — openwork, where the form is completed by cutting through it. Each hole carved into the clay wall opens the piece to light.
The first time she tried it, something unexpected happened. It was not just the clay that opened.
Tugak on the wheel © SILCO HAUS
"Every time I pierced through, something inside me opened too. It's hard work, and pieces break often. But that feeling — I couldn't stop."
The technique led naturally to an exhibition theme: tathātā, a Buddhist concept meaning to see things as they are. Not good or bad. Not light or dark. Just what is. The show explored the coexistence of light and shadow — two forces that seem opposed but cannot exist without each other.
Light through linen at the tathātā exhibition © SILCO HAUS
"Darkness doesn't exist without light. Light doesn't exist without darkness. I wanted to bring those two together."
It was not planned. The technique, the theme, the philosophy — they arrived together. A year of searching, and then everything aligned.
tathātā exhibition © SILCO HAUS
Letting go of perfection
Jihyeon came to ceramics from digital product design, where she still works alongside her studio practice. For years, everything she made existed on a screen — visual, precise, untouchable. The first time she shaped clay with her hands, the sensation was a shock.
"I could touch what I made. That tactile feeling — it was completely new. I started once and couldn't stop."
Before the kiln © SILCO HAUS
At first, she approached clay the way she approached design: symmetrical, controlled, precise. If anything was slightly off, it felt like a failure. But as she studied Korean ceramic history, she found that the potters she admired most had embraced the opposite. The beauty was in what the hand left behind, not in what it corrected.
"I used to stress if anything was slightly crooked. Once I let go, I started making what I actually wanted to make."
Working in natural light © SILCO HAUS
She learned to stop before adding too much. Too much work shows. Too little shows too. The balance lives somewhere between effort and restraint.
"Don't be greedy. That's how I end every piece."
White is a colour
When Jihyeon first started making, she used bold colours freely. It was a habit carried from digital work, where colour was the most natural way to express something. But as she went deeper into the clay, the palette began to shift on its own.
She started working with baekja — white porcelain — and the subtle warmth of the clay itself became enough. The off-whites, the faint traces of texture beneath a clear glaze. She stopped wanting to cover it.
Jihyeon placing work at the tathātā exhibition © SILCO HAUS
"Rather than decorating with colour, I started asking — what can I make with the least I have?"
Now her palette moves between black and white. Not as a limitation, but as a foundation. The black carries weight — something grounded, close to shadow. The white holds everything else. It can become any colour, and yet on its own, it is the strongest presence in the room.
Black, white, and everything between © SILCO HAUS
"White can become any colour. But it actually has the biggest presence of all. And there are thousands of different whites."
Korea is never far from this. Jihyeon thinks about Baekuiminjok — the white-clad people, a term for Koreans that reflects a long cultural relationship with the colour white. A nation that chose the most easily stained colour and wore it anyway.
"It's a colour that gets dirty so easily, and yet they insisted on wearing it. I think that says something. And I think it's why I'm drawn to it too."
Glaze material © SILCO HAUS
She has not abandoned colour. If anything, she wants to pursue it more consciously — so that when it appears, it carries something. Not decoration. Not habit. Just the right colour, in the right place, meaning what it needs to mean.
For Jihyeon, colour is not theory. It is emotional. It comes from things she has seen, places that made her feel calm, memories she carries from childhood.
"Colour is deeply emotional for me. It comes from what I've experienced — things I was drawn to, moments that made me feel at peace."
The collected studio © SILCO HAUS
The space she keeps
Jihyeon's studio is filled with secondhand things. Every piece of furniture was found somewhere, carried back, placed without a plan. Nothing matches. Nothing is new. And somehow, all of it works.
"I just collected things I liked. No plan. And somehow it became harmonious."
Afternoon light © SILCO HAUS
She has been here about two years. Before coming in each day, she does not want to. It is the same small resistance every time. But the moment she steps through the door, something settles. She does not want to leave.
"Before I come, I don't feel like it. But the moment I step in, I feel calm. I could stay here forever."
The studio runs on natural light. Jihyeon prefers it that way. She trusts it to show the clay and the glaze as they really are. At night, when the daylight is gone, she keeps the light low. No overheads. Just enough to see what is in front of her.
Jihyeon at the wheel © SILCO HAUS
She tried Noka by setting it next to different pieces, changing the colour to see what suited what. Orange and pink were her favourites — warm against the cool steel.
"I liked changing the colour to match the work. The colour that suits the piece and the colour that suits the mood — they're different."
Noka in purple © SILCO HAUS
Still forming
Jihyeon is not done with any of it. Tugak will continue. More experiments to come. The eyes are not going anywhere — but they are changing. Where once she gave objects a gaze, she now wants to share her own way of seeing. Not just eyes on a vessel. The perspective behind them.
Still forming © SILCO HAUS
There is so much left to try. That is why she fell into ceramics in the first place. The material keeps opening. The learning does not end.
"There's no end to it. That's why I fell into ceramics. What you can do is truly limitless."
Jihyeon at the tathātā exhibition © SILCO HAUS
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Jihyeon is a ceramicist and digital product designer based in Melbourne, running Jeehey Studio. Find her work at @jeeheystudio on Instagram.
