Sojung Pyeon is a craft artist who reimagines traditional Korean lacquer (otchil) techniques through a contemporary aesthetic, exploring rich color layering and tactile surface texture in everyday objects. She studied Metal Craft and Oriental Painting at Seoul National University and earned a master’s degree in Oriental Painting, later obtaining the cultural heritage repair qualification of ‘chiljang’ (漆匠).

In 2019 she founded her studio-brand Harta, where she presents lacquered tableware, living objects, and limited-edition pieces that reflect both craft integrity and modern design sensibility. In her work, lacquer is not simply a technique—it becomes a medium of time and matter. “Lacquer is a quiet record. The sap drawn from the lacquer tree is layered by brush, hand, light, air, and time in sequence,” she says.

Her practice emphasizes durability, usability, and poetic material ageing—objects whose surfaces evolve in color and texture with use and time. Her debut solo show “Lacquer Blooms” (2020) showcased plates and trays crafted with a newly developed stamping technique, demonstrating how traditional craft can meet contemporary design. Moving forward, Pyeon continues to blur the boundaries between tradition and modernity, material and life, form and color, expanding the expressive range of lacquer into broader design contexts.