Jay Sae Jung Oh

Jay Sae Jung Oh is a South Korean-born artist and designer based in Seattle whose practice combines sculpture, furniture design, reuse, and handcraft. She is best known for her Salvage Chair series, a body of functional sculptural furniture created by gathering discarded or ordinary objects and binding them together with raw leather cord. The resulting pieces retain traces of their previous identities: bicycle parts, guitars, handbags, children’s toys, plastic objects, and other found materials can remain visible beneath or within the unified leather surface. Rather than treating recycling as an invisible industrial process, Oh makes the history and irregularity of the salvaged material central to the design. Oh’s educational background spans fine art, sculpture, and industrial design. She earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine arts and sculpture from Kookmin University in Seoul before completing a Master of Fine Arts in 3D industrial design at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. This combination of sculptural training and design education is reflected in works that function as chairs, sofas, stools, planters, and wall organizers while also operating as one-of-a-kind assemblages. Her objects generally emphasize tactile surfaces, visible construction, and the contrast between hard, irregular contents and the continuous leather wrapping that encloses them. The practice developed publicly during the early 2010s. In 2011, Oh received the Mercedes-Benz Emerging Artist Award and won the Design Quest Furniture Design Competition for her Jute Side Table. That work used discarded plastic objects assembled into a furniture form and wrapped in a natural material, establishing an early direction for the later Salvage series. The series was at times referred to as the Savage Chair series, but is more commonly identified as Salvage. Its scope has expanded beyond chairs to include broader categories of domestic and spatial objects. Oh also has an academic and institutional design background. From 2013 through 2016, she served as a visiting professor in industrial design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her work has subsequently appeared in exhibitions and collections associated with major design and art institutions, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and Kookmin University. In 2019, she received the Best Contemporary Design Award at Design Miami for work based on thrifted and found objects arranged and wrapped with leather cord. Her exhibition profile includes international presentations such as the 2023 exhibition Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth House in the United Kingdom and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibition Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design. Her work has also been discussed or featured by Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, The New York Times, Fast Company, The Washington Post, and Vogue. Oh works with Salon 94 Design in New York, which places her practice within the contemporary collectible-design and gallery furniture field. In addition to her individual art and design practice, Oh is identified as the founder and designer behind Boo Oh, a pet-oriented brand. Public information available for the Jay Sae Jung Oh practice does not establish a conventional incorporated company, mass-market manufacturing business, financial structure, or public listing. The practice is better understood as an artist-led design brand centered on limited, gallery-associated works, material experimentation, and environmentally conscious reuse.

Jay Sae Jung Oh was born in South Korea in 1982 and developed an interdisciplinary practice connecting fine art, sculpture, industrial design, and furniture. She studied at Kookmin University in Seoul, completing bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine arts and sculpture. She later moved into advanced industrial-design study in the United States and earned a Master of Fine Arts in 3D industrial design from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Her early work established the material and conceptual principles that define her practice. In 2011, she won the Mercedes-Benz Emerging Artist Award and the Design Quest 2011 Furniture Design Competition for the Jute Side Table. The piece brought together discarded plastic objects and a natural wrapping material, creating a functional object whose construction and previous material identities remained legible. This approach developed into her most recognized body of work, the Salvage Chair series. The Salvage series uses discarded objects, plastics, jute, and cowhide leather. Oh gathers heterogeneous materials and wraps them tightly with leather cord, converting an accumulation of unrelated items into a coherent sculptural form. The series includes chairs, sofas, stools, wall organizers, planters, and related furniture objects. Embedded objects may include bicycle components, guitars, purses, bags, children’s toys, and other everyday materials. The leather surface is typically presented in natural tan or black tones, making the pieces visually unified while preserving evidence of the objects beneath. From 2013 to 2016, Oh was a visiting professor of industrial design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her professional practice continued to circulate through design fairs, galleries, museums, and editorial coverage. In 2019, she received the Best Contemporary Design Award at Design Miami for work based on thrifted objects arranged and wrapped in leather cord. She works with Salon 94 Design in New York, supporting the presentation of her work in the contemporary design gallery sector. Oh’s work has entered or been shown in major institutional contexts. Publicly identified collections include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and Kookmin University. Her exhibition history includes presentations at Chatsworth House in the United Kingdom and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. In 2023, she participated in Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth and was featured in Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design. Her work has received attention from Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, The New York Times, Fast Company, The Washington Post, and Vogue. Alongside her art and furniture practice, Oh founded and designed Boo Oh, a pet brand. Available reference material does not document a conventional corporate structure, a public company, financial results, or a large-scale retail network for the Jay Sae Jung Oh name. The brand is therefore best characterized as an active, artist-centered design practice whose value proposition rests on sustainability, reuse, manual labor, and the transformation of discarded material into collectible functional art.

• 2023

  Exhibitions at Chatsworth and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

  [1]Jay Sae Jung Ohen.wikipedia.org

  Her work appeared in Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth and in Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

• 2019

  Best Contemporary Design Award

  [1]Jay Sae Jung Ohen.wikipedia.org

  Oh received the Best Contemporary Design Award at Design Miami.

• 2016

  Completes UIC visiting appointment

  [1]Jay Sae Jung Ohen.wikipedia.org

  Her documented visiting-professor appointment at the University of Illinois at Chicago concluded after a period running from 2013 to 2016.

• 2013

  Begins visiting professorship at UIC

  [1]Jay Sae Jung Ohen.wikipedia.org

  Oh began teaching industrial design as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

• 2011

  Jute Side Table receives early recognition

  [1]Jay Sae Jung Ohen.wikipedia.org

  Oh won the Mercedes-Benz Emerging Artist Award and Design Quest 2011 Furniture Design Competition for the Jute Side Table.

• 1982

  Birth and early background

  [1]Jay Sae Jung Ohen.wikipedia.org

  Jay Sae Jung Oh was born in South Korea.

Artist-led collectible furniture and contemporary design focused on material reuse, visible handcraft, and the transformation of discarded objects into functional sculptural works.

• Furniture and collectible design

  Salvage Chair series

  Oh’s signature furniture series transforms discarded everyday objects into functional sculptural seating. Plastic objects, bicycle parts, musical instruments, bags, toys, and other found materials are assembled and wrapped with raw cowhide leather cord. The wrapping creates a unified exterior while allowing fragments of the original objects to remain visible. The series is associated with chairs but also extends to sofas and related domestic forms. Its emphasis on handwork, material history, and reuse places it between contemporary art, collectible design, and functional furniture.

• Table · 2011

  Jute Side Table

  The Jute Side Table is an early work in Oh’s reuse-based furniture practice. It assembles discarded plastic objects and encloses or binds them with a natural material, creating a table that functions as both furniture and an exposed material study. The work received the Mercedes-Benz Emerging Artist Award and the Design Quest 2011 Furniture Design Competition, and it is described as an early development of the ideas later associated with the Salvage series.

• Pet products

  Boo Oh

  Boo Oh is a pet brand founded and designed by Jay Sae Jung Oh. Public reference material identifies the brand but does not provide a reliable complete catalog, launch chronology, ownership structure, or detailed product specifications.

1. 1Jay Sae Jung Ohen.wikipedia.org
2. 2Jay Sae Jung Oh official websitesaejungoh.com