🍩 Sweet Treats: Delivering Smiles Through Sparkling Ceramics
Jaeyong Kim's incredible non-edible world, "a language hidden in donuts" that's "like writing a diary every day"
“At the time, I was in the dark, and I needed to be in light; that’s the reason I created this piece. Let me focus on myself and shine—and others will shine. Maybe one person, one artwork, can change the world.”
—Jaeyong Kim, #HealingCampaign2020
Greetings, Dohnuts! I’m serving visual treats today in lieu of an essay from an incredibly gifted ceramic artist, Jaeyong Kim, known as “the doughnut guy.”
Glazed donuts take on new meaning with his intricate clay creations, adorned with layers of shiny, vibrant glaze, glitter, and sometimes even Swarovski crystals. We both share a desire to make art from this delightful edible symbol; for Kim, “there’s a certain language that is hidden in each doughnut.”
As he tells House Beautiful:
Each donut is hand-thrown, hand-painted, then glazed—and no two are alike.
. . . “I see my work as a visual language that delivers smiles, because life these days isn’t always easy,” Kim said. “The more challenges I face, the brighter and shinier my work tends to be—and it needs to give me strength and as much of a smile when I’m creating it.”
Kim, a professor at Seoul University of Science and Technology, splits his time between Korea and New York City (yes, I hope to stalk meet him here someday!). The origin of his series was sparked by financial failure, a very Rolling in Doh origin story.
In this ten-minute video, Kim shares how losing most of his investments in the 2008 financial crisis led him to reexamine what money meant to him in the first place.
“In the Bible, Adam and Eve struggle with an apple; for me, I struggle with a donut,” Kim says, “an item symbolizing money and ambition—things you want but that won’t necessarily deliver good to your life.”
He also reveals how he gained confidence using color, given that he’s partially color-blind and had previously stayed safe by sticking to greys. Kim also describes the ways donuts represent his personal emotions and experiences, “like writing a diary every day . . . because of that, every donut is precious to me.”
In an interview with Twelv magazine, “Ceramic Genius,” Kim goes deeper into his origin story, which began with a failed donut shop investment:
Kamara Williams: What was the inspiration behind your donut exhibit, “Blah Blah Blah”?
JYK: I made the donut exhibition when I was having the most difficult time as an artist. It was challenging for me to keep going in that direction because I now have a family now that I have to support, which is not an easy thing to do in New York City. So I looked into other businesses [besides art] to provide for my family. One of the businesses I looked into was a donut shop, and we invested in that restaurant and lost all our money.
I wanted to have an object that symbolized something that I wanted, but if I have it, I will lose focus. As an artist or as a human being, when you have certain needs that are fulfilled, you start thinking about something else. My ambition came through, but at the same time I was questioning myself. I also spoke with a lot of successful people who have succeeded in their business in New York to try to understand how to make money. The more I listened to them, the more I realized they were talking bullshit. They talked about their lifestyles such as living in an expensive apartment means something and I was like you know what? I don’t understand that language.
They talked about numbers and income and I didn’t understand that language, so I used donuts to make a statement to say that this is what I love made out of ceramics, this is what I care for, this is what I like. That became a language that they didn’t understand. That’s also the reason that I entitled it ‘Blah Blah Blah.’ I thought it was a funny thing to call the exhibit ‘Blah Blah Blah’ because the more I listened to people the more I realized that I didn’t know what they were trying to say. The donut exhibition really came from trying to survive and focus on my dreams.”
Here’s a fun one-minute video peek into Kim’s donut-making process from a 2021 exhibit, “Donut Fear,” with winks to Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons:
In a longer five-minute explanation for #HealingCampaign2020, Kim describes his deeper motivations—to shine in the face of fear and help others do the same—while offering a close-up on the exquisite gold and silver crystallized centerpiece donut:
Some of Kim’s donuts are over three feet wide, like those in his XXL series. As he told Twelv Magazine about the inspiration to go big:
“I’m working on a large-scale donut. It’s the same as the small ones but I want it to be more powerful. One of the things I enjoy most about the small donuts is that is urges viewers to go in to see it. It’s almost like in a diary. It’s too small so I want it to be a little bigger. I want viewers to feel it as a painting, not as a donut. Scale isn’t that important, but at the small size people have a very hard time seeing it for more than what it is, so I want to challenge myself with this project.”
In a solo exhibition at Hakgojae Gallery in Seoul, “Run Donut Run,” painted sprinkles transform into stacks of books (watch this IG reel for another zippy video tour):
Finally, if you’re feeling decadent, you could inquire about purchasing one of his “Donut Be Naked” Swarovski stacks:
Follow Kim on Instagram here, and I hope you have as much fun as I did diving even deeper into his donut world!
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This was inspiring! I wish I could see one of his exhibits. Some of these donuts are HUGE! Incredibly beautiful.
Ooh! Such beautiful doh nuts!! Such a fun post. Making the world more whimsical and beautiful is a worthwhile pursuit. Thankful for artists. 🎉