Isolina Minjeong (b. 1997, Chicago; lives and works in Brooklyn) presents works, created at The Residency, the gallery’s program in Versailles. Part of SHADOWLAND, these figurative ceramic sculptures are fueled by the ancient lineage of Korean and Peruvian (Inca) stone carving. She draws on the mystical soldiers, guardians, and ritual figures of ancient Korean and Peruvian tombs, two cultures far apart yet united by figures that protect thresholds, and reimagines them as contemporary sentinels, where this heritage meets manga imagery and lore.

Working in ceramic, a material bound to burial and ritual, Minjeong emphasizes form, weight, and surface as carriers of meaning. Her figures appear excavated rather than fabricated, their fissures and fired textures suggesting endurance. Combining presence and vulnerability, they explore authority and fragility, and question what forms protection might take in an era of instability, inheritance, and reinvention.

At the intersection of contemporary figurative sculpture, Korean and Peruvian heritage, and popular culture, Minjeong’s practice affirms ceramics as a medium of psychological, spiritual, and enduring force.