Yih Wen Kuo "Eternal Home" Abstract Architectural Ceramic Sculpture

A slab-built ceramic sculpture from Yih-Wen Kuo’s long-running “Eternal Home” series, the body of work in which the Taiwanese-born, Illinois-based artist reduces the idea of a dwelling to its simplest geometry. It reads at once as a house, a tower, and a landform. The piece is about the scale of a small book, but its profile and pierced openings give it a monumental, architectural presence.

The sculpture is a narrow, asymmetrical slab form. A four-step gable descends along one edge, and the opposite edge rises in a long, steep slope, so the silhouette changes as you walk around it. On the principal face, an angled plane folds inward to form a recessed lower volume, like a small building tucked under a larger roof. The base is shaped to match, so the whole piece leans slightly into its own slope.

The front has a set of three narrow vertical slits, set low on the recessed volume like a barred window. The flat reverse face has a single tall rectangular window with beveled reveals.

The broad faces are covered in a matte, painterly surface of terracotta orange and sage green, dragged and feathered in vertical strokes. Over this are blurred clusters of lavender, periwinkle blue, and small flecks of acid yellow. The soft-edged diamond motifs recall ikat textiles, as though the pattern were bleeding through the walls. The stepped edges, sides, and underside are left a clean off-white, which frames the color fields and sharpens the outline. The piece has a soft, vellum-like finish and is quite pleasing to the touch.

The underside carries the artist’s original handwritten paper label, reading “Eternal Home” Series, 10 × 7 × 3", Ceramics, signed Yih Wen Kuo. It also has a later inventory label noting 3D, H 9.5", W 7.25".

About the Artist

Yih-Wen Kuo (also published as Yi-Wen Kuo) was born in Taiwan and earned his B.Ed. from National Taiwan Normal University. He came to the United States for graduate study and completed his MFA at Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 1988. He taught art and ceramics at Northern Illinois University for 31 years and retired in 2021 as Professor Emeritus. Kuo has shown his work in more than 200 exhibitions internationally. His work is held in public collections including the Everson Museum of Art, the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. The “Eternal Home” series, his best-known body of work, explores geometry, space, and the archetypal house form.

DIMENSIONS: 7" W × 3" D x 10" H

ORIGIN: United States, Illinois

PERIOD: 2020's

MATERIALS: Ceramic, glaze

CONDITION: Excellent original condition. A loose piece of ceramic is contained inside the sculpture, likely from removing one of the window-like shapes.

SKU: BR00068