Yang Sun-yeol's Ottogi sculptures are finished in automotive lacquer, their heads left featureless. A guide to her work and six pieces at the Seed Art Festival.
Yang Sunyeol's six SAF contributions are all roly-polies.
Ottogi. A toy that rises again when knocked down, which Koreans have played with in the oldest memory. Yang Sunyeol stands it back into the world in sculptural form — smooth surfaces finished in car paint, chrome and rainbows and pastel pink.
Expanded Motherhood
"The subject she has pursued throughout her career is a deep poetic empathy for existence and objects in general. In particular, through the recovery of an expanded motherhood, she explores overcoming the crisis of this era and the possibility of spiritual communion between human, object, and nature."
The core line from her bio. The concept expanded motherhood extends beyond a mother's care to a sense of care reaching across humans, objects, and nature. The roly-poly is the material embodiment of that sense. An object that rights itself no matter how often pushed. The artist ties that stubborn restoring force to the recovery of motherhood.
Six Roly-Polies, Different Colors
The six SAF works differ in size and color but share material and form. All are roly-poly sculptures on resin finished in car paint.
- Ottogi_Mother Ya-ho — 55×55×120 cm, 2014. The earliest matrix work of the series.
- Ottogi Chrome Rainbow (purple top) — 60×60×130 cm, 2022
- Ottogi Chrome Rainbow (blue top) — 60×60×130 cm, 2022
- Ottogi Earthy Rainbow — 40×40×90 cm, 2021
- Ottogi Earthy Rainbow Matte — 40×40×65 cm, 2021
- Ottogi – Pink DB Matte — 1.2×1.2×28.5 cm, 2021. A small, slender matte pink roly-poly.
The title Mother Ya-ho is significant. A mother's yaho — the cry of liberation on a mountaintop, or a voice calling. A roly-poly is an object always standing, placed in a posture that can always respond.
Earthy and Chrome, Two Textures
Her roly-polies split broadly into two tones.
Chrome Rainbow — surfaces finished in the chrome paint used on cars. Color shifts with every hit of light; different wavelengths reveal themselves by angle. The aesthetic of technology and industry.
Earthy Rainbow — a rainbow mixed with earth tones. A rainbow closer to soil. A texture closer to nature's layer.
The same form of ottogi oscillates between the two tones. One points to city/industry/tech; the other to earth/nature/soil. The artist's theme — spiritual communion between human, object, and nature — realized through the choice of surface.
Six Roly-Polies at SAF
84.9% of Korean artists are excluded from institutional finance. Sales of works by SAF-exhibiting artists cycle into a mutual-aid fund, returning as low-interest loans to fellow artists.
A roly-poly rises when knocked down. But this rising again does not occur by leaving it alone. A center of gravity must be designed inside. Care and design must coexist for an ottogi to be an ottogi.
The same holds for an artist's life. A structure must exist where one can stand again — beyond individual will alone. SAF's mutual-aid fund is a way of collectively designing that center of gravity. When Yang Sunyeol's six roly-polies are placed in someone's space, they do more than decorate. Sales become a fund; the fund becomes another artist's center of gravity.
Ya-ho!
Yang Sunyeol's roly-poly seems to stand quietly, but the title says: Mother Ya-ho.
A mother calling a name across the mountain. May the cry reach — and may whoever it reaches rise again from where they have fallen. SAF 2026 is close to one echo of that cry.
Works by Yang Sunyeol
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