“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 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, 2015; The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, 2000; and the Anonymous Was A Woman Grant, 2012.