Many Paths to Practicing Ceramic Art

The stories shared at the recent event 'Strange Porcelain: Multi-Purpose Practice' held at The Outpost in Hanoi, have opened up many avenues for the ceramic art form.

When it comes to ceramics, we think of objects such as bowls and plates - everyday items made from clay, going through a firing process to create the final product.

Nhiều con đường để thực hành nghệ thuật gốm sứ

Speakers at the event. (Photo: Phuong Thao)

However, in the eyes of modern artists, ceramics go beyond that conventional definition, and are seen as a material for artistic practice.

Ceramic practice is not simply about creating objects, but about using materials such as clay, objects in themselves, combined with the ability that the artist can create and transform on ceramic materials.

Coming to pottery naturally, each artist has a different way of practicing art with pottery.

Nguyen Duy Manh, a visual artist with many years of experience in painting and fiber, has challenged the limits of ceramic practice with his powerfully operative works: scratches, scrapes, incisions, and moldings into distinct solid masses.

Deep within are thoughts and feelings about the cracks and fractures in production methods, neighborly relationships, and tragedies that spoken language cannot express.

“Flowers in the soil” by artist Nguyen Duy Manh. (Source: The Muse Artspace)

As for artist Linh San, when she wanted to speak with something that could be touched, she turned to ceramics with many different ways of "playing" with thinness and thickness.

She seeks the thinness of paper with the work “Nights”, like a layer of skin with “Appendix”, or takes advantage of the translucency of porcelain to create a very special work of art with light in “This neck, that hand”...

It can be seen that the art of ceramic practice is extremely diverse and creatively transformative. Through the hands of the artist, ceramics can speak a language that other materials cannot.

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