Joonghan Bae

Joonghan Bae is a 31-year-old artist and designer based in Bloomfield Hills, MI. He was born in Seoul and moved to Philadelphia in 2010, where he studied fine art and woodworking. He then moved to Bloomfield Hills to attend Cranbrook Academy of Art and received an MFA in 3D Design in 2020. He takes inspiration from nature, man-made structures, and fantasy while playing with the boundaries between form and function.

Bae grew up in a house full of Suseok. Suseok is a Korean traditional form of art centered around collecting stones, which his grandfather avidly practiced. He remembers the visceral feeling of the stones and how they were both comforting and inspired his imagination. As a son of an architect/engineer, he appreciates the collective human mind that allows us to create great man-made structures. With these legacies, many of his works explore the emotional response to nature, fantasy, and the beauty of human reason.