Feature Review
Bridges of Clay
The exhibition Innovative Ceramics: Melbourne – Hong Kong, curated by lecturer Chris Sanders over two years, acknowledged the talents fostered by australia’s RMIT University’s studio ceramics programme.
Spanning sixty-six works from twenty-eight artists, half drawn from Australid, the rest from Hong kong mainland China, and Taiwan, the contributors included both current candidates and past graduates. RMIT initiated its BA Fine Art program in Hong Kong in 1997 in the disciplines of painting, ceramics and photography, through a collaborative relationship with the Hong Kong Arts Centre, Wanchai. Program Manager, Professor Kevin White, who travels regularly to Hong Kong. Sanders selected the works from loco artists, while White and Hong Kong coordinator Fiona Wong vetted the international contingent.
Although the exhibition had no set theme, and was intended as more of a survey, it proved remarkably cohesive when the works arrived. This bringing together of disparate artists” work allowed the teaching staff to consider how the relative difficulties and strengths of implementing the course in two different situational and cultural contexts had essentially balanced out. The artists’ engagement 1 with current issues, ideas, and concerns, was immediately evident; seen as a whole, the works seemed expressive of a certain commonality of purpose and experience. Winus Lee’s witty parody of the logo-mania and brand-consciousness sweeping China, found its way onto her incised teaware; the ‘LV’ and floral pattern hallmark of Louis Vuitton replaced with the artist’s own initials. The looping handle of a designer handbag is echoed in the traditional form of a teapot from her self-described ‘teapot factory’. Anissa Siu-Han Fung’s research on Chinese ritual objects (mingqi), and symbolism in ritual art informed her pieces, Embroidery and Ritual (2006). The paper-thin, handbuilt porcelain works demonstrate Fung’s 3 sensitive reinterpretation of the patterns, icons, and paraphernalia she visualises in the ritual practices of modern Hong Kong.
For Australian audiences, Ruby Cheng Pui Yee’s My Father’s Thongs (2006) was an easily identifiable cultural artefact that could be found in any hallway or kitchen, albeit with the surface resembling a cheese grater. Ya-Chu Hsieh’s riveting lustre-work from his series A Living Soul (2005) has an obvious beauty with an underlying sinister edge. Hsieh is concerned with changes in cultural and spiritual attitudes, and their relationship to scientific development over the last century. The tension between the natural and the technological is also evident: ‘I aim to investigate these changes through examining the development of toys and how they reflect changes in community perceptions’, Hsieh explains. ‘My works specifically focus on toys that replicate most closely the human form, such as dolls and robots’
A number of artists chose to focus on the interaction with domestic or utilitarian objects, how these can define or enrich our sense of space, and to what extent we subconsciously rely on their presence for a sense of order. Marie Jip’s long, tapering porcelain vessels in muted shades, some with elegant spirals, stood serenely in almost familiar groups. Fiona Hiscock’s recent work responds to botanical illustration as a source of decoration. Vases #1 and #2 (2006) incorporate motifs from plants found in early colonial gardens. ‘Two residencies in Hill End [in New South Wales] were very useful for identifying plants and producing drawings’, Hiscock recalls. ‘An unfolding leaf or flower seems very indicative of our struggle to live purposely in this world.’ Irene Kwai Ying Lau appeared concerned with the artistic process of drafting or sketching itself. Her Still Life (2006) tantalises the viewer with flattened ‘cut-out’ kitchenware and fruit templates, creating depth and movement where none actually exists.
Abstract or contemplative work exploring the boundaries of the medium also featured strongly. Li-Feng Lo’s Untitled (2006) speaks of the transience and fragility of life. Composed of 468 black and white porcelain feathers, each is hammered into place with a pearl-headed pin, ‘I, personally, look at each feather as an individual, they have their own personality, she muses. Of her work, Untilled (2006), Titania Henderson says, ‘My goal has been to challenge the long-standing beliefs associated with the use of bone china as a material suitable for slip-casting only.’ Paired waves of extraordinary delicacy seem to float in the air like arcs of corrugated sugar, ‘I am attempting to create sculptural forms with the visual fragility of paper, whilst making the most of the translucency of the material qualities’, she confirms. The cool, precise forms of Rachel Wai-sze Cheung’s Equilibrium XI (2003) hint at dwellings or architectural structures, while Shaping Space (2003) defied the audience to step on its bent white rods clasped into an embrace above the floor.
Inspiration derived from nature and the environment was, unsurprisingly, most evident in the work of local artists. Katrin Chittams’s undulating Southern Spaces (2005) explores the artist’s feelings towards the ancient coastline of South Australia, and the relationship between land and sky. Marilyn Walsh’s Ebb and Flow #1 and #2 (2006), multi-layered handbuilt porcelain vases, reference natural phenomena like the swaying coloured grasses of a barrier reef. Sophie Thomas’s works are wheel-thrown and altered to create forms that reference the spiral structures of shells and plants. Thomas develops the richly coloured textural surfaces by carving through muli layers of coloured slip. ‘This technique creates a vibrant sense of energy through the contrasts of colour whilst integrating with the 10 form’, she says. ‘It gives the illusion that the textural surface has grown with the form’. Mon-Xi Wu’s Contrasting Rhythm #7, #6 and #8 (2006) confront us with punchy. bulbous organic forms and textures in raku clay. Shum Pui Ying’s industrialised garden boxes, Flowers (2005-6), surprise with their unexpected delicacy.
For the artists involved, Innovative Ceramics provided a singular opportunity to appraise each other’s work, to discover a shared perspective, and fostered a sense of camaraderie amongst peers separated by distance, if not in spirit.
Inga Walton
TITANIA HENDERSON 