In my work I explore the parallels between contemporary craft practice and the archaeological process. Both approaches involve a tactile and process-driven engagement with materials. In craft, the maker follows the flows in the material, with the final outcome being a correspondence between maker and material. In archaeology, something similar happens: the archaeologist follows the cuts, identifies the fills and co-creates knowledge in the present via an engagement with the past.

My practice spans more traditional ceramic work (vessels and sculptures) with an interest in surface pattern, texture and print, to more experimental performance and installation-based works which use raw and low-fired clay.

I have often been inspired by the built environment, particularly the dense public housing estates and ruined rural villages in Hong Kong.

Find me on instagram @ceramify

Artist bio

selected shows

Unceramic (curated group show)
The Gallery, Hong Kong Arts Centre: June – July 2020

Peeling the Onion - Master of Fine Art Graduation Exhibition 2018
Pao Galleries, Hong Kong Arts Centre: September 2018

Tropical lab 11: Citation : Deja vu (group show for artist in residence)
LaSalle University, Singapore: August, 2018

Lightscapes (curated group show)
RMIT lanes, Melbourne, Australia: May, 2016

Beyond the fold (group show)
PubArt Gallery, 7 Chancery Lane, Central: November, 2015

Village (solo show) 
Unit Gallery, Level 9, JCCAC, Shek Kip Mei, Hong Kong: August, 2011

Not an open field (collaboration, installation works) 
White Tube, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Wan Chai, Hong Kong: November 2010 

Dual Plasticity (group ceramics show)
L1 Gallery, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, Shek Kip Mei: October – November 2010 

Clay Works 2010 (invitation ceramics group show) 
Taipa Houses Museum, Macau: 13 September – 9 October, 2010 

New Trend 2010 (invitation show of top 40 Hong Kong Fine Arts graduates) 
Artist Commune, Cattle Depot Artist Village, Hong Kong: August – September 2010 

This way up (graduation show of HKAS BA in Fine Art) 
Pao Galleries, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Wan Chai, Hong Kong: July 2010 

Obstinate Things: pots and photographs (solo show) 
Café Golden, JCCAC Level 1, Shek Kip Mei, Hong Kong: April – May 2010 

public art

Collage of Nature (2012) Roof Garden, Domain Mall, Yau Tong, Hong Kong. With Ray Chan, Fiona Wong and Ben Yau.

StarBanana (2007) Hong Kong Art School Pao Haung Sue Ing Campus, 8 Tam Kung Temple Road, Shau Kei Wan, Hong Kong

education

MFA
RMIT Melbourne, Australia (2018)

PGCE Secondary Art
Reading University, UK (2012)

BA Fine Art (Ceramics)
RMIT University, Australia (2010)

BA Archaeology and Prehistory
Sheffield University, UK (1999)

media

RTHK 31: “830 Magazine”
2 Aug, 2020
Click here for video on YouTube.

The Works (RTHK weekly arts programme)
1 June, 2016
Click here for video on YouTube. From 7m33s to 11m44s

Ming Pao Weekly magazine
12 April, 2014

Sai Kung Magazine
2011
Click here for link

Selected works

handbuilt pots

During various Covid lockdowns, I returned to coil pots, creating work inspired by my local surroundings and each designed as a commission for a specific friend.

Unceramic (group show, 2020)

The word “Ceramic” can be traced back to the Greek term κέραμος (keramos), which means “a potter” or “pottery”. It is related to an older Sanskrit root, which means “to burn”. Thus, the early Greeks used the term to describe “burned stuff” or “fired earth”.

What does “Ceramic” mean now?

9 alumni (Major in Ceramics) from different backgrounds and cohorts attempt to reexamine this question in a contradictory way and use “unfired” clay to express their own ideas in this “Unceramic” exhibition.

What role does unfired clay play in the so-called “contemporary ceramic art”?

The Thinking Hand was inspired by the new reality of online learning: as an art teacher, how can we teach students to engage with materials when we are not physically in the same room as them? What approaches might be feasible, meaningful, joyful? Members of the HKA school community were invited to create a pinch pot, following my YouTube video. The unfired pots were presented with QR code linking to the video and an audio reading taken from Juhani Pallasmaa’s The Thinking Hand.

not all that is solid melts into air (2017)

Unfired terracotta and earthenware, custom-made table with canvas top, trolley, glass box, water, foam, paper 

Not all that is solid melts into air (2017) is my culminating project for my Master in Fine Art degree from RMIT University, Melbourne (Australia). The work seeks new ways to understand the relationship between tool, material and the (absent) maker. The tools are both present and absent in the work in the positive and negative of the earthenware tiles. I came up with a new method for moulding every ceramic tool in my studio, which I call “drop moulding”. In this method, fabric thin layers of paper-clay are laid over tools arranged on a board. The board is then repeatedly dropped until the form of the tool is enveloped and revealed by the clay. The positive/negative, action/artefact relationship highlights the normally invisible role that the tool plays in the formation of the final object, and the vital role it plays in mediating the movements of the hand. 

Ideas of time – geological, archaeological and fleeting – and gravity are interwoven in the installation through the accreting layers in the tank, the gestural marks on the canvas and the contingent use of paper and foam.   

The tank of water brings in destructive and transformative actions of melting, disintegrating and eroding. The traces left behind on the canvas ask us to look at tools in a different way, and to question the artefact outcome which is typical for craft materials such as clay.  

The title comes from Bjornar Olsen’s In defense of things. Olsen is a Norwegian archaeologist who argues for the primacy of physical experience and material culture. Not all that is solid melts into air draws parallels between the artist’s work of creating future meaning through interactions with the physical world in the present, and the archaeologist’s tasks of creating meaning in the present from physical remains from the past. In each practice there is an interplay between hand, tool and material. 

 To move, to know, to describe (2017)

26 artists' tools in raw terracotta (each approx 20 cm x 30 cm), glass tank (60 cm x 40 cm x 45 cm) with water, fluorescent tube. 

Part of Tropical Lab 11 artist residency at La Salle College for the Arts, Singapore (July-August 2017).

 on the way to becoming

“In a world of materials, nothing is ever finished: everything may be something, but being something is always on the way to becoming something else” (Tim Ingold)

 beyond the fold (2015)

Humans spend their whole lives looking for a sense of belonging: the most important need is seeing the value of oneself in relation to one’s environment.  Throughout the history of mankind, people have responded to their environment by marking walls, observing and recording happenings, and building mental and spiritual spaces to create meaning.  Human awareness of the universe has brought with it a desire to find out the roots of our existence.

Inspired by my background in archaeology, these works attempt to unpack the ways in which Hongkongers navigate the city, particularly the somewhat ambivalent spaces of public housing. They play with the abstract patterns and textures which can be found in the urban environment.

beyond the fold - works on paper (2015)

Mixed media prints on paper, 29cm x 103cm

 collage of nature (2012)

"Collage of Nature" is a free-standing ceramic wall in the roof garden of Domain Mall in Yau Tong. Its basis is an exploration of the native and non-native plant and tree species in Hong Kong. One side features coloured leaf tiles taken from impressions of real leaves. The other side explores the scientific, cultural, historical and artistic aspects of the plants.

Joint project with Ray Chan, Fiona Wong and Ben Yau.

 Village (2011)

I have lived in Sha Kok Mei, a village near Sai Kung in the eastern New Territories, since 2004. “Village” arises out of my attempt to show my own lived experience of place. My work is influenced by psychogeographers like Iain Sinclair, but is also firmly grounded in traditional ceramic craftsmanship. The result is works which are ambivalent towards the place, showing both its beauty and its banality.

 obstinate things (2011)

beyond the fold in the map (2010)

I approach the world as an archaeologist: I try to look below the surface of things to seek out their biographies, their social lives. In the New Territories where I live, there are scores of abandoned villages hidden in the woods. Sometimes all you see are tumbledown walls overgrown with creepers. Sometimes, however, the houses are almost intact. 

These places pose questions about the people who lived there. About life in the New Territories before the factories of Kowloon pulled away the rural population. About departure and abandonment. About time and change.