Joy Machine is pleased to launch life forma solo exhibition by Janny Baek, will be on view from March 20 to May 9, 2026.
How do we conceive of change? With fear, excitement or uncertainty? Janny Baek grapples with these questions when she makes sculptural ceramics that speculate on creatures and imagined landscapes. The work follows its own dream logic, accepting dissonance and dissonance as necessary conditions for play and experimentation. Marbling blocks of colored clay, coiling bases, and shaping a unique material into something new is part of an exploratory practice that embraces transformation and its often strange results.
life form Emerging from this dual meaning is a reference to both the act of creation and the fantastical work it produced. Bai’s sculptures are neither entirely abstract nor representational, but instead draw on natural structures and processes and invite us to question how we interpret the world around us. Recognizable forms such as open flowers, birds and creatures encounter unexpected situations. These vivid components make even more abstract works appear alive, like vague organisms that might decide to escape. They evoke something original, yet excitingly new.
Bai draws as a sketch as a means of developing ideas and visualizing their potential. In her ceramics, she combines handcrafting with the Japanese pottery technique known as “nerikomi,” which involves piecing together and designing patterns with strips of colored clay. “My material choices are a way of thinking about natural processes: color gradients as the continuous nature of change, multiple colors as potential, richness and vitality, patterns as signals and communication,” she said.
Baik’s work hovers between two worlds, creating a speculative environment in which creatures morph, mutate, and bloom, their individual characteristics forming an otherworldly lineage that is identifiable but not identical. While these works “temporarily and imperfectly capture the many transformations that may occur,” they nonetheless beckon us to a world in which change is not only inevitable but also the most alluring of propositions.
life form This is Baek’s debut in Chicago. An opening reception will be held on March 20, with the artist in attendance. See more of Baek’s previous posts on Colossal.
