Sydney Hyunah Oh (b. 1987) is a New York City–based ceramic artist whose practice centers on woodfiring—an intensive, multi-day method that embraces elemental forces and the unpredictable imprint of flame, ash, and air. Her vessels are fired in an oreum-gama (noborigama), a traditional multi-chambered climbing kiln first innovated by Korean potters and later renamed in Japan following the forced relocation of artisans during the Imjin Wars (1592–1598) under Korea’s Joseon dynasty.

For Sydney, this process is both technical and personal: a counterbalance to the speed of digital culture, and a form of quiet resistance—reclaiming a Korean ceramic lineage that has too often been overlooked or uncredited. Each firing becomes a meditation on presence, transformation, and ancestral legacy—where process itself becomes the story.

Sydney’s process involves multi-day firings that require constant attention and physical labor. She works primarily in large-scale vessels, which are loaded into the kiln during communal firings. Over the course of several days, the fire is stoked around the clock, and the atmosphere inside the kiln continuously shifts—depositing ash, encouraging flashing and carbon trapping, and creating surfaces that cannot be replicated. Rather than aiming for uniformity, Sydney embraces unpredictability as a central part of her practice. The results are shaped as much by the elements and chance as by hand.

Sydney is also the founder of Milk and Clay, through which she began sharing her ceramics publicly. Her work has been featured in T Magazine, Cereal, Architectural Digest, Vogue, Business of Fashion, Glamour, and more.