Emily Yong Beck (B. 1999)
Kirby
signed by the artist
glazed ceramic
14 x 8.5 x 8.5 Inches (35.56 x 21.59 x 21.59 cm)
Executed in 2025.

PROVENANCE:
The Pit Gallery, Los Angeles

NOTES:

Beck’s ceramic work explores the intersection of traditional craft and contemporary visual culture, transforming familiar vessel shapes into canvases for cartoon and childhood imagery. Initially whimsical, her figures gain depth as the clay forms reveal layers of cultural influence and overlooked histories. This work features Nintendo's Kirby, an already clay like video game character, positioned around the piece in a way that balances nostalgia with critical reflection, encouraging viewers to reconsider the familiar in a new context.

Emily Yong Beck (b. 1999, Daegu, South Korea) is an interdisciplinary ceramic artist currently based in Chicago. She earned her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021. Beck has held solo exhibitions at galleries including Gaa Gallery in Provincetown, MA; New Image Art in Los Angeles, CA; and Lefebvre et Fils in Paris, FR. She has also participated in artist residencies at institutions such as Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts (Newcastle, ME) and Township10 (Marshall, NC).

Photography by Chris Hanke. Courtesy of the Artist and The Pit.