Xu Shiyuan
Xu Shiyuan was born in Hangzhou, P.R China, currently lives and works in Chicago. She received her BA (Ceramics) from China Academy of Art in 2012, and an MFA (Ceramics) from Arizona State University in 2016. She is a 2017 Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist and 2021 NCECA Emerging Artist Fellow.
Xu Shiyuan hand-build structures with porcelain paperclay. She build vastness with thin structures to let the intricacy of nature speak for itself. The skeletal lines create harmonious volume within an intimate scale of form, providing a sense of fragility and preciousness.
Experimenting with various glazes, either allowing the glaze to run, to drip through or connecting to other parts becomes an integral part of the whole structure, or over spraying on the surface to organically form a soft layer of skin. Using blue and white color palette reflects Xu Shiyuan Chinese cultural heritage.
The regular and irregular structures and layers grow, interact, alter, evolve and adapt as I slowly build them. They are in many ways like living organisms, reflections of my own life path, and an abstraction of the complexity and delicacy of life itself.
Xu Shiyuan is represented in London by Ting-Ying Gallery
My work is inspired by the research of scientific and microscopic phenomena ranging from single-celled organisms in the ocean to the diverse plant’s seeds on the land, to cells, the building blocks of all life form. My fascination with the shapes, patterns, structures and textures of these microorganisms stimulates my creation. I reinterpret these visual elements into sculptural forms revealing the beauty and diversity of the hidden world.
Blue Vein No.7
Porcelain paper clay, Glaze
H34xW28xL19 cm
Xu Shiyuan
Image Credit: Xu Shiyuan
