Artist Statement /bibliography
In my project, I explore the impact of the British National (Overseas) visa on Hong Kong immigrants moving to the UK since its 2021 introduction. Using urban observations from Manchester and Hong Kong, I seek to find my sense of belonging. I metaphorically connect the fluidity of glaze to the unsettled history of Hong Kong immigrants, applying 'reverse thinking' and philosophical theory 'deconstruction' to my work. Experimenting with glaze as the sole material, I aim to represent the constructed and deconstructed aspects of my identity and the cities, ultimately rediscovering my sense of belonging.
This deconstruction of my identity between the two cities becomes my profound artistic process, aiming to unearth a renewed sense of belonging through experimenting with glaze as the stand-by-alone material. As a ceramic artist, my practice is process-led and rooted in research, with an experimental approach driven by the belief in learning through the act of making. Originating from Hong Kong and now based in the UK, I get inspired from diverse areas like concepts of memories, philosophy, identities, politics, alchemy, anthropology, architecture, and nature, weaving these diverse threads into my body of creations. I also draw inspiration from the works of artists like Takuro Kuwata, Stephen Creech, and Chloe Monks. Through the research and the theories I got inspired by, I embarked on a creative process that challenged conventional assumptions about the role of glaze in ceramics.
My creation is full of playfulness and take risks with the material while finding the other possibilities of using glaze. I wish to bring out material confusion in my work and bring out a unique viewing experience for the audience.
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Process of experimenting with glaze and ways of applying glaze
Make testers to test some different fluidity of the glaze
Before and after some glaze testers fired to 1280 C, I have picked three gloop glaze and will fire them to 1220 C. I think the gloop glaze wasn't very successful when fired to 1280 C because they are too fluid. I wish to have a more solid texture.
Putting the glaze test tiles in a kiln-washed sagger and putting aluminium powder underneath can prevent the glaze from sticking on the kiln shelves, and is also a great way to remove glaze easily.
I started to make more slab plates for future use. I will kiln wash them so I can put some glaze tests for experiments.
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Below are G1, G2 and G3 gloop glaze fired to 1220 C. I have mixed with colour stains. I am very happy with the flow of them, between fluid and solid, I can see the glaze's movement in the kiln.
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Born and raised in a city like Hong Kong, my surrounding is full of chaotic scenarios. The city is small and dense, the objects on the streets and the buildings are seemingly forced together, forming a unique view of the city, diverse and chaotic. Even the people living here are diverse with different races from around the world.
In my way of seeing, this city has endless things to discover on the streets 24/7, it is restless, it is extremely colourful.
I decided to use bold and expressive colours in my glaze due to this reason.
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Left: It is a mini ball mixed with 50% porcelain and 50% Lava glaze. There are only a few areas that have the lava surface, but not like the lava glaze that have a whole piece of bubbly surface.
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Right: A 'mochi' like piece, there is a G2 gloop glaze inside, with porcelain slip wrapped outside. The fluid gloop glaze breaks through the porcelain skin, I love how the piece shows the flowing moment frozen in the kiln.
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I have made a construction to place the stainless steel mesh with G2 gloop glaze. I want to test the glaze's fluidity on the mesh, seeing how they behave, and wish the gloop glaze will drip through the mesh, to have a dripping effect.
After fired to 1220 C, the gloop glaze didn't have a dripping effect, they just melted between the mesh, which is not what I expected. But the good side is I like how the mesh shows on the surface of the glaze, stuck on the surface of the glaze.
The gloop glaze mesh with the contrast with my reference photo in the background.
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Some more experiments on placing the gloop glaze in different positions, playing around with gravity and possibilities of applying gloop glaze. The result shows that the gloop glaze has its weight and the cup is deformed a bit by the weight of the glaze.
We have a Daylight Studio photography session, so I have taken some photos of the gloop glaze cup (someone said it's like Dennis the Menace..). In the photos, I would like to replicate the position of how I fired the cup in the kiln and let the audience reimagine the glaze melting movement in the kiln.
This porcelain trimmed strips cup has the quality to play with light and shadow, its special feature is the contrast between the strips. I want to capture the form directly in front and let the audience see the thickness of the form. The photos show the cup very neatly and that is what I want to present.
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I have mixed some dry black and white porcelain chips, and some dry glaze chips to form a square block. I intended to put the glaze chips in the middle layer, hoping to get some glaze flowing out of the block.
At last, the glaze didn't flow out, I was curious about what the inside looked like, so I went to the glass coldworking workshop to cut the block into 4 pieces. The cross-sections of the piece are very much like a cake's cross-sections. The semi-transparent part is the glaze chips.
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Left: G6 glaze fired to 1220 C, it barely melted.
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Right: G6 glaze fired to 1280 C, it becomes bubbly. Has an interesting contrast with the different firing temperatures.
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I have been trying to throw glaze on the wheel.
The left: Lava glaze 80% and porcelain 20%. The right: G2 glaze, with a thin coat of black porcelain slip.
The results in order. The left: I am very happy with the grey and a bit of bubbly effects of the vase.
The right: The dramatic reaction of the glaze has expanded and flowed out of the slip coat, I like to see how the glaze breaks free from the slip and the fluid movement has been captured.
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After testing some gloop glaze, and knowing the use of kiln-washed clay plates and aluminium powder to separate the glaze out, I started to think is that possible to just make some glaze pieces and fire them on the plate.
Below are the glaze pieces, each with different component and recipe. Before firing.
Below are the glaze pieces after firing to 1220 C. In sequence as above.
In this batch, I especially like the two pieces below. The left below is made of G6 and G2 glaze in slabs, one is more gloopy one is more solid, leading to a collapsing effect, brings out the effect like a solid box is melting.
The right below is SM1 glaze, I am very happy with it as it is very shiny and smooth.
Next, I stack the glaze pieces as a little tower, I fire them to 1280 C, to see how they behave with each other. Test the gravity and movement of them during the firing in the kiln.
Below are the before and after firing.
I have been inspired by the collapsing architecture, the blocks of the building fall dramatically, and I can feel the gravity in the photos. I try to replicate the visual effect and the feeling of deconstruction in my glaze towers.
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Triaxial pad test to test the different percentages of components: Whiting, Quartz and China clay.
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I made a stoneware slab, then made some balls of gloop glaze, to see how they behave between each ball. The reason why I designed them as balls is that I want each ball to be the same size and shape, and test how will they melt and behave with each ball that touches each other. It's a more simple way to see the result.
The balls are divided into 3 parts: The upper part is cornish stones 100%, the middle part is cornish stones 90% and frit 10%, the lower part is cornish stones 80% and frit 20%. Fired to 1220 C. The upper part of the balls barely melted, I will try to fire them in 1280 C again.
Also, the balls on the slab are inspired by this picture taken by me another day when I was walking on the street. The moss on the stone.
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I have further made two slab boxes for glaze molding. The box is divided into five slabs, it is designed to de-mold easily when the glaze becomes solid. I then brush a layer of kiln wash on the interior of the box. After another bisque firing, I surround the box with stainless steel wires, the purpose is to secure the slabs. After all, I put some aluminium powder in the box, prevent the glaze from leaking into the little gaps of the box and sticking with the slabs.
I then pour the G2 glaze into the mold.
The result of this glaze casting is disappointing. First of all, the clay plate underneath the mold is broken weirdly. The mold has de-molded in the kiln and the stainless steel wire became very fragile and broken into pieces. Secondly, even though the glaze didn't leak out of the mold and formed a piece of glaze, the shape of the glaze did not form a neat rectangle as I expected.
This method of casting glaze is not successful. The process and the result are not cost-effective. I have to spend extra time to make the mold but the result of the glaze piece is just the same as I roll the glaze paste on the plaster mold.
Further experiments on casting glaze. I have an idea of applying the glass molding method to cast the glaze. I have made a molochite mold, pour the glaze into the mold, and will fire the glaze with the mold in the kiln to 1220 C.
Unexpectedly the glaze flowed out of the mold. Happily, I tested out the molochite mold could survive to 1220 C. Then I will try to dissolve the molochite mold in the water as it is quite soft and sandy, and try to remove the glaze piece from there.
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I tried to roll thick slabs of G2 gloop glaze and stuck them onto the stainless stain mesh. I am hoping to get dramatic drips through the mesh.
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I have made blocks of different glazes in different components and fluxes with colour stains. I made these blocks and want to stack them together as a tower.
Below are some sketches to show how I further imagine some more resolved tower pieces and the possibilities that my pieces could be.
I have realized the glaze towers are somehow similar to Jenga the stacking tower. The nervous feeling when removing the blocks from Jenga, is closely like when I am stacking the glaze blocks into a tower, the unstable state that the blocks nearly collapse. Also, I could reference the form of Jenga to build my glaze towers.
From the start of my project, I have cut a block of porcelain and glaze block and think the cross-sections are similar to a sponge. So I have tried to cut a sponge in blocks and play with the possibilities of them. The foam texture surface of the sponge is very interesting, and its airy feature led me to consider more possibilities for my glaze blocks.
After the pieces are dry, I place them on the kiln-washed plates and fire to 1220 C. I gave some space between each piece to prevent them from sticking together. Also as the pieces are bigger than the last test, I don't really know how far would the glaze melt.
Below are the fired results in order.
After the 1220 C firing, I got the glaze pieces and will stack them into towers and fire again to 1280 C. I have considered the colour combinations before I made those glaze pieces, and now I will follow the colour combinations I decided on and reorder the pieces into a tower.
I then put the towers into some saggar boxes, after considering the risk of the towers may collapse dramatically and may destroy the kiln elements.
After the 1280 C firing, unfortunately, the glaze towers are melted into a pool of glaze... One of them still be able to take it out but the other one was stuck with the saggar box's wall.
I reflect on the 'failure' and there are things I could resolve next time that I am happy about. There are too many very soft glazes in the combinations of towers this time. I thought they would just stick together, but in fact they cannot fire to 1280 C and overfired. For the solutions, next time I will just refire the glaze tower to 1220 C, same as the previous firing so they won't be overfired, and I can change the combinations of the glaze pieces, with half amount of pieces that would barely melt and half amount of pieces that are melting more. Then I could get the balance to keep the towers alive.
The red and pink glaze piece is now a wall panel!
After the towers had melted into pools, I uploaded the towers' images onto Midjourney, wanting to reimagine the ideal state of them. I wish the pieces stick and melt together, also collapse a bit.
The contrast between the real glaze tower and the AI-generated image of it is so fascinating, which is real and which is virtual?
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I have made some glaze balls, aim to make some glaze wall panels. I wish to display it in the WIP show, as the glaze towers have melted into pools.
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Pricing of a glaze wall panel
Product cost:
clay￡2 + raw materials￡20 + packaging￡10 + firing￡30 =￡62
Studio cost:
￡200/month, ￡10/day, I could make one piece/ day.
Monthly living expenses (groceries, rent, utility bills...): ￡1500, living expenses/day: ￡50
How much I need to earn per month: ￡3000
cost/product: ￡122, ￡122 X ￡2.5 = ￡305
RRP: ￡305
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Product direct sales price: ￡122 X ￡2.5 = ￡305
Net profit: ￡183
Final product price: ￡305
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3rd party sales price (gallery): sales price ￡305 + 30% commission = ￡396.5
Therefore, the final price for the glaze wall panel is￡396.5.
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L6 WIP Show
I have considered about the curation of the show. At first, I wanted to present the coloured glaze towers, but now, I will have to change a bit of my plan. I decided to show all the glaze-only pieces, as well as the saggar box that my glaze tower has melted into. This is to show my making process and could let the audience understand more about the behind-the-scenes. On the other hand, it is still helpful to show the little white collapsing glaze tower, to show how the glaze gradually melts.
For more information about my L6 Unit X external activities and research, please click below...
