Charles Burnand Gallery highlights Korean designers across two exhibitions in Seoul

Charles Burnand Gallery presented two exhibitions in Seoul—Material Echoes at Design Miami Seoul 2026 and Resonant Matter at Frieze Seoul 2026. Staged concurrently during Seoul Art Week, the two design exhibitions marked the London-based gallery’s most ambitious showcase in Asia so far and reinforced its distinctive position within the contemporary art and collectable design. As Charles Burnand Gallery notes in the official release, both showcase presented “Korean collectable design, with one of the largest representations of Korean design artists outside Korea”.

For Resonant Matter, presented within Frieze Seoul’s Material Practice section (September 2 – 5, 2026), the design gallery brought together eight contemporary designers whose practices explored the dialogue between maker and material, including Peter Lane and Marc Fish, alongside Korean artists Inhye Ji and Kyeok Kim. “Working across ceramics, blown and cast glass, steam-bent timber, copper wire, ottchil lacquer, carbon, recycled aluminium and illuminated resin, the presentation demonstrates the breadth of contemporary material practice today,” the contemporary design gallery notes.

Across the city at Design Miami Seoul, from August 31 – September 6, 2026, Material Echoes responded to the fair’s curatorial theme of Resonance while engaging with the setting’s architecture. The exhibition considered how materials preserve memory, cultural knowledge and traces of human touch long after the act of making has ended. Bringing together artists from South Korea, China, Ireland and the United Kingdom, the presentation explored material as a means for personal and collective histories.

“Highlights include Jan Waterston's Primitive Excavations (Striations), where carved ash evokes geological memory and archaeological discovery; Niamh Barry's Artists Hand VII, combining hand-formed bronze, mosaic glass and light; and Robyn Neild's cast bronze sculptures exploring the relationship between organic form and permanence,” the gallery explained. The presentation also featured works by Fish, Ian Milnes, Lane, Yanxiong Lin, Fabrikr, Jungin Lee, Deglan and Weon Rhee, bringing together sculpture, collectable design and lighting in an exploration of material, memory and transformation.

"Presenting two exhibitions simultaneously in Seoul allows us to explore that conversation from different perspectives. Resonant Matter focuses on the act of making itself, while Material Echoes considers what remains afterwards: the memories, traces and cultural resonance embedded within objects long after they leave the studio. Together they represent a single curatorial statement about the enduring power of material to shape both objects and our relationship with them," Simon Stewart, founder of Charles Burnand Gallery, concluded.