Summer Workshop Lecture Series // YoonJee Kwak and George Rodriguez

Yoonjee Kwak is an artist and educator originally from South Korea. With a passion for artistic expression, Yoonjee has participated in various artist residencies and conducted workshops both nationally and internationally, all while showcasing her art in numerous prestigious venues. Yoonjee is a former long-term resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation in MT and Pottery Northwest in WA. She earned her MFA in ceramics from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York and her BFA in ceramics and glass from Hong-Ik University in Seoul, South Korea. Recognizing her outstanding talent, Yoonjee has been honored with the James Renwick Alliance Chrysalis Award in Ceramics and the Emerging Artist Award from Ceramics Monthly Magazine. Her artistic prowess has also been showcased in international Ceramic and craft biennials, including those in Icheon, Korea, and more recently, in Chungju, Korea, and Jingdezhen, China. Currently, Yoonjee serves as the Full-time Ceramic Faculty in the Visual Arts Department at the prestigious Loomis Chaffee School in CT.

Born and raised in the border city of El Paso, TX, George Rodriguez creates highly ornamented, ceramic sculptures, often underlined by a connection to the sociopolitical issues the artist explores. Rodriguez holds a BFA from the University of Texas El Paso and an MFA from the University of Washington, Seattle. His work has shown at the San Juan Islands Museum of Art, Friday Harbor, WA; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Canton Art Museum, Canton, OH and others. His sculptures are part of the collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL; the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University, Salem, OR; Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. and the National Museum in Stockholm, Sweden amongst others. George was featured on PBS Craft in America "Storytellers" episode and has created a large public sculpture for the new Kansas City Airport which opened March 2023.