linxustudio

Amber Andersen - Curator, the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba , 2008

Art, whether it exists in the form of drawing, painting, or a ceramic installation, involves interpretation. Art works, when placed in a gallery, must speak for themselves. You, the audience, play an important role when looking at art because you are not only the viewer of an object but an interpreter. As an interpreter you bring your own aesthetic tastes, life experience, knowledge and curiosity to work in front of you. The artist is no longer in control of how the work will be perceived but rather leaves it up to you, the viewer, to bring new life and meaning to their work. This is of the utmost importance to Xu. Although the works are very autobiographical they are abstracted in such a way that they are open to interpretation.

The following is my interpretation of Xu’s works. As with all interpretations, there is always a possibility that something will get lost in the translation. However, as the phrase goes, when something’s lost something’s gained. Xu’s background is a sound example of this phrase. Originally from China , Xu began her career as an engineer, then designer, and finally artist. Xu left China when she was 27 to pursue a degree in the visual arts at the University of Sydney , in Sydney , Australia . Upon meeting her husband in Australia , he was a Canadian on vacation; she decided that she would continue her education in North America . Xu would complete her Masters of Fine Arts at Washington State University and continue her artistic and academic aspirations in a new fine arts program at Brandon University . Since her arrival in Brandon , Xu has had the pleasure of seeing the first wave of students she has taught graduate from the Aboriginal and Visual Arts program at Brandon University . She has also, in this time, had her first child, aptly named Sydney .

Fate, coincidence, chance, and/ or manifest destiny have not only played an important role in shaping Xu as a person but also perform an important role in her art making practice. Drawn to the medium of clay, Xu is fascinated with its serendipitous nature. Chance occurrences, for Xu, lend character to her work. She sees her ceramic installations and sculptures as living objects. With her won personalities that she has to contend with. Her perception of her work and the objects that she has abstracted, from finger prints to palm prints, from vases to porcelain pillows, speak to the relationship that she has with her v=environment and her body. These works are intended to make the audience question the fundamental philosophic questions of what makes us who we are, what makes us unique, and what is left behind. The everyday shapes, objects and materials employed in this exhibition question our ties to these objects. Xu’s re-contextualized works make us reflect on how seemingly banal objects dictate our personality and how they become archives of who and what we are and perhaps how these objects are their own living organisms.

I liken the process of working with clay to a game I played as a child. The game consists of whispering a word to the person sitting immediately to the left of you. Seated in a circle, each participant is instructed to repeat the word(s) they just heard and add their own. As you can guess, the conclusion of this game is often quite humorous because it has very little connection to the original whispered word. Yet, every once in awhile, I was amazed to find every participant not only remembered what had been passed onto them, but everyone worked together to create an amazing story. Ceramics is similar to this game; each step involves translation, adaptation, and invention. The works in this exhibition result from both the welcome
and unwelcome serendipitous moments that occur in the ceramic process. Xu, in her exhibition Utility/Object Reflections, views these unanticipated or coincidental chances as fate/manifest destiny, lending character to her work. For Xu, her ceramic installations and sculptures act as living objects. They each have their own personality with which she must contend. Her perception of her work and the objects that she has altered, from finger prints to palm prints, from vases to porcelain pillows, speak to the relationship that she has with her environment and her body. These works are intended to make the audience question the fundamental philosophic questions of what makes us who we are, what makes us unique, and what traces we leave behind. The everyday shapes, objects and materials employed in this exhibition, question our ties to these objects. Xu’s re-contextualized works make us reflect on how seemingly banal objects dictate our personality, how they become our history and how these objects take on a life of their own and become their own living organisms.

This is best witnessed in three separate bodies of work. The first series of work consists of twelve miniature pillow forms. Each structure has as a recess in the middle to mimic the concave shape your head makes when lying on a pillow. Fusions of various clay bodies shaped into tiny ceramic sculptures
are placed directly above the indentationsIt is Xu’s choice of scale and mediums, or her translations, which negate the idea that these are actual pillows. Xu employs this technique throughout her exhibition.
Including familiar shapes or vessels in her works, like pillow forms or bowls, eases the viewers into approaching her art works. Adding abstract elements compels viewers to re-examine their relationships to these objects.

Xu employs this method in The Joy of Boredom, which consists of multiple cylindrical structures, each with a brown base and a turquoise circular top. The cylinders all look alike, but are varied. Multiples
of anysimilarly shaped object often tempt viewers to compare and contrast, to find similarities and differences. Xu cleverly makes us as viewers reconsider theses seemingly simplistic works.

If variation is what makes something individual, then Xu’s 25 larger sculptures, central to the exhibition, function in a similar way to Xu’s pillow series. Both series toy with ceramic conventions by combining
different clays, surface treatments, techniques and various commercially made ceramic objects. Thus, each piece has its own unique aesthetic and personality. These key characteristics were noticed by George Mamby, a friend of Xu’s that named the pieces. George Mamby holds a lifelong fascination with, and is particularly drawn to, the components of language used to facilitate communication. On the naming of the Xu’s works, he states:

I can sense the entities that Lin has created making a noise, both amongst themselves, and sent out to those who engage them. In listening to them making this noise, a type of vibration I call a brrmur, I have picked up and picked out parts of their character and thus pieces of their names. I have also looked at them and studied their physiognomy and seen their character reflected in particular features and found further parts of their names there. To me they are more than mere objects and are individuals; they are actually a group of individuals with a name. In the English language tradition of naming numbers of animals with collective nouns, they have become to me a brrmur of kloogs. Lin agrees that this appellation is fitting.1

Language also plays an intrinsic role in this exhibition. Originally from China, English is a second language for Xu, and as a result translation is not only fundamental to her art practice but to her life as well. Xu plays with notions of interpretation and translation in her piece After Henri Michaux. This installation of over two hundred porcelain circular shapes is attached to a wall and displays Xu’s own version of altered pictographs. Some resemble human forms, while others look similar to Mandarin symbols. This is Xu’s ode to Belgium poet and writer Henri Michaux, an influence for Xu, whose many renowned books focused on language and semiotics. In this piece, Xu’s own composed pictographs question the basis of language and point to the power of visuals as a form of non-verbal understanding. However, Xu complicates this idea by creating her own signs - a system of communication that only she, as the artist, can translate. There is a certainfrustration in not being able to understand her “language”. This feeling of annoyance is mimicked, for me, in the piece Wish Me Luck.

Wish Me Luck is an installation which consists of red strings tangled into a web or nest shape attached to the corners and ceiling of the gallery. On the floor, connected to the strings are gourd-like shaped structures. Each “gourd” has a hole on its bottom that tinged with red glaze. At first glance, I read the messily knotted threads as a three-dimensional tongue twister. As the title suggests, I wish the artist luck as I imagine her fastidiously untying the knots while trying to make sense of a chaotic system. Wish Me Luck is also autobiographical and attests to the artist’s struggle with the limited meanings of words that inform her identity.2 In recent years, Xu gave birth to her first child. Xu knows best the added complications of titles like “Mother” to her own singular identity. The gourds, a symbol for Xu herself, lie in close proximity to the tangled web. The gourds and the strings connect to one another and complicate how they are understood in relation to each other; similar to the way a family’s relationship alters one’s personal identity depending on perspective.

Perspective plays an important role in all interpretation, especially in the context of language or identity. This is expressed in the shadow pieces, entitled Immortality, which are also autobiographical. Xu used her husband’s and her own shadow as silhouettes for the piece. Comprised of two sets of shadows, each set is made up of a pair of silhouettes that are filled in with either flat flower shaped discs, or impressions
of the artist’s palm and/or fingerprints. Placed on the floor the shadows mimic the look of one’s shadow as the sun sets – long and distorted. Immortality is the one piece in this exhibition that supersedes the restrictions of language. Like After Henri Michaux, Xu has create many small components to produce a larger piece. She makes juxtapositions between the limitations of language and the body, and the relationship between the porcelain pieces and the shadow shape they are confined within. The small porcelain pieces are restricted to the confines of the shadow, intimating that language cannot surpass the bodies’ limitations. However, by using her own fingerprints and palm prints, Xu reminds us that our bodies are unique to us. They are as individual as the hands used to create this work. Our bodies offer an understanding and give voice to a world that cannot be confined to spoken or written language.

This is the ultimate conclusion for Xu, who sees our bodies as being intrinsically linked to the experiences that make us into the individuals we are. In Xu’s Utility/Object Reflections, a cup is no longer just a cup; things are not always what they seem. Rather elements, such as drinking vessels, when added to abstract apparatuses convey the idea that a cup is much more than just a form for holding liquid. It can express ideas, emotions, and language simply because of our bodies’ relationship to that object. Through our senses, we are able to comprehend matter in a way that cannot be expressed by any other means. Thus what could be construed as a mere object, like a pillow, becomes, for Xu, an alternative way to better understand our bodies in their environment and vice versa. We bestow objects with meaning but these objects also provide meaning and otherwise inexplicable understanding to our experiences and lives.


	Amber Andersen - Curator, the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba , 2008 Art, whether it exists in the form of drawing, painting, or a ceramic installation, involves interpretation. Art works, when placed in a gallery, must speak for themselves. You, the audience, play an important role when looking at art because you are not only the viewer of an object but an interpreter. As an interpreter you bring your own aesthetic tastes, life experience, knowledge and curiosity to work in front of you. The artist is no longer in control of how the work will be perceived but rather leaves it up to you, the viewer, to bring new life and meaning to their work. This is of the utmost importance to Xu. Although the works are very autobiographical they are abstracted in such a way that they are open to interpretation. The following is my interpretation of Xu’s works. As with all interpretations, there is always a possibility that something will get lost in the translation. However, as the phrase goes, when something’s lost something’s gained. Xu’s background is a sound example of this phrase. Originally from China , Xu began her career as an engineer, then designer, and finally artist. Xu left China when she was 27 to pursue a degree in the visual arts at the University of Sydney , in Sydney , Australia . Upon meeting her husband in Australia , he was a Canadian on vacation; she decided that she would continue her education in North America . Xu would complete her Masters of Fine Arts at Washington State University and continue her artistic and academic aspirations in a new fine arts program at Brandon University . Since her arrival in Brandon , Xu has had the pleasure of seeing the first wave of students she has taught graduate from the Aboriginal and Visual Arts program at Brandon University . She has also, in this time, had her first child, aptly named Sydney . Fate, coincidence, chance, and/ or manifest destiny have not only played an important role in shaping Xu as a person but also perform an important role in her art making practice. Drawn to the medium of clay, Xu is fascinated with its serendipitous nature. Chance occurrences, for Xu, lend character to her work. She sees her ceramic installations and sculptures as living objects. With her won personalities that she has to contend with. Her perception of her work and the objects that she has abstracted, from finger prints to palm prints, from vases to porcelain pillows, speak to the relationship that she has with her v=environment and her body. These works are intended to make the audience question the fundamental philosophic questions of what makes us who we are, what makes us unique, and what is left behind. The everyday shapes, objects and materials employed in this exhibition question our ties to these objects. Xu’s re-contextualized works make us reflect on how seemingly banal objects dictate our personality and how they become archives of who and what we are and perhaps how these objects are their own living organisms. Utility / Object Reflections I liken the process of working with clay to a game I played as a child. The game consists of whispering a word to the person sitting immediately to the left of you. Seated in a circle, each participant is instructed to repeat the word(s) they just heard and add their own. As you can guess, the conclusion of this game is often quite humorous because it has very little connection to the original whispered word. Yet, every once in awhile, I was amazed to find every participant not only remembered what had been passed onto them, but everyone worked together to create an amazing story. Ceramics is similar to this game; each step involves translation, adaptation, and invention. The works in this exhibition result from both the welcome and unwelcome serendipitous moments that occur in the ceramic process. Xu, in her exhibition Utility/Object Reflections, views these unanticipated or coincidental chances as fate/manifest destiny, lending character to her work. For Xu, her ceramic installations and sculptures act as living objects. They each have their own personality with which she must contend. Her perception of her work and the objects that she has altered, from finger prints to palm prints, from vases to porcelain pillows, speak to the relationship that she has with her environment and her body. These works are intended to make the audience question the fundamental philosophic questions of what makes us who we are, what makes us unique, and what traces we leave behind. The everyday shapes, objects and materials employed in this exhibition, question our ties to these objects. Xu’s re-contextualized works make us reflect on how seemingly banal objects dictate our personality, how they become our history and how these objects take on a life of their own and become their own living organisms. This is best witnessed in three separate bodies of work. The first series of work consists of twelve miniature pillow forms. Each structure has as a recess in the middle to mimic the concave shape your head makes when lying on a pillow. Fusions of various clay bodies shaped into tiny ceramic sculptures are placed directly above the indentationsIt is Xu’s choice of scale and mediums, or her translations, which negate the idea that these are actual pillows. Xu employs this technique throughout her exhibition. Including familiar shapes or vessels in her works, like pillow forms or bowls, eases the viewers into approaching her art works. Adding abstract elements compels viewers to re-examine their relationships to these objects. Xu employs this method in The Joy of Boredom, which consists of multiple cylindrical structures, each with a brown base and a turquoise circular top. The cylinders all look alike, but are varied. Multiples of anysimilarly shaped object often tempt viewers to compare and contrast, to find similarities and differences. Xu cleverly makes us as viewers reconsider theses seemingly simplistic works. If variation is what makes something individual, then Xu’s 25 larger sculptures, central to the exhibition, function in a similar way to Xu’s pillow series. Both series toy with ceramic conventions by combining different clays, surface treatments, techniques and various commercially made ceramic objects. Thus, each piece has its own unique aesthetic and personality. These key characteristics were noticed by George Mamby, a friend of Xu’s that named the pieces. George Mamby holds a lifelong fascination with, and is particularly drawn to, the components of language used to facilitate communication. On the naming of the Xu’s works, he states: I can sense the entities that Lin has created making a noise, both amongst themselves, and sent out to those who engage them. In listening to them making this noise, a type of vibration I call a brrmur, I have picked up and picked out parts of their character and thus pieces of their names. I have also looked at them and studied their physiognomy and seen their character reflected in particular features and found further parts of their names there. To me they are more than mere objects and are individuals; they are actually a group of individuals with a name. In the English language tradition of naming numbers of animals with collective nouns, they have become to me a brrmur of kloogs. Lin agrees that this appellation is fitting.1 Language also plays an intrinsic role in this exhibition. Originally from China, English is a second language for Xu, and as a result translation is not only fundamental to her art practice but to her life as well. Xu plays with notions of interpretation and translation in her piece After Henri Michaux. This installation of over two hundred porcelain circular shapes is attached to a wall and displays Xu’s own version of altered pictographs. Some resemble human forms, while others look similar to Mandarin symbols. This is Xu’s ode to Belgium poet and writer Henri Michaux, an influence for Xu, whose many renowned books focused on language and semiotics. In this piece, Xu’s own composed pictographs question the basis of language and point to the power of visuals as a form of non-verbal understanding. However, Xu complicates this idea by creating her own signs - a system of communication that only she, as the artist, can translate. There is a certainfrustration in not being able to understand her “language”. This feeling of annoyance is mimicked, for me, in the piece Wish Me Luck. Wish Me Luck is an installation which consists of red strings tangled into a web or nest shape attached to the corners and ceiling of the gallery. On the floor, connected to the strings are gourd-like shaped structures. Each “gourd” has a hole on its bottom that tinged with red glaze. At first glance, I read the messily knotted threads as a three-dimensional tongue twister. As the title suggests, I wish the artist luck as I imagine her fastidiously untying the knots while trying to make sense of a chaotic system. Wish Me Luck is also autobiographical and attests to the artist’s struggle with the limited meanings of words that inform her identity.2 In recent years, Xu gave birth to her first child. Xu knows best the added complications of titles like “Mother” to her own singular identity. The gourds, a symbol for Xu herself, lie in close proximity to the tangled web. The gourds and the strings connect to one another and complicate how they are understood in relation to each other; similar to the way a family’s relationship alters one’s personal identity depending on perspective. Perspective plays an important role in all interpretation, especially in the context of language or identity. This is expressed in the shadow pieces, entitled Immortality, which are also autobiographical. Xu used her husband’s and her own shadow as silhouettes for the piece. Comprised of two sets of shadows, each set is made up of a pair of silhouettes that are filled in with either flat flower shaped discs, or impressions of the artist’s palm and/or fingerprints. Placed on the floor the shadows mimic the look of one’s shadow as the sun sets – long and distorted. Immortality is the one piece in this exhibition that supersedes the restrictions of language. Like After Henri Michaux, Xu has create many small components to produce a larger piece. She makes juxtapositions between the limitations of language and the body, and the relationship between the porcelain pieces and the shadow shape they are confined within. The small porcelain pieces are restricted to the confines of the shadow, intimating that language cannot surpass the bodies’ limitations. However, by using her own fingerprints and palm prints, Xu reminds us that our bodies are unique to us. They are as individual as the hands used to create this work. Our bodies offer an understanding and give voice to a world that cannot be confined to spoken or written language. This is the ultimate conclusion for Xu, who sees our bodies as being intrinsically linked to the experiences that make us into the individuals we are. In Xu’s Utility/Object Reflections, a cup is no longer just a cup; things are not always what they seem. Rather elements, such as drinking vessels, when added to abstract apparatuses convey the idea that a cup is much more than just a form for holding liquid. It can express ideas, emotions, and language simply because of our bodies’ relationship to that object. Through our senses, we are able to comprehend matter in a way that cannot be expressed by any other means. Thus what could be construed as a mere object, like a pillow, becomes, for Xu, an alternative way to better understand our bodies in their environment and vice versa. We bestow objects with meaning but these objects also provide meaning and otherwise inexplicable understanding to our experiences and lives. Exhibiton Catalogue - Amber Anderson, 2008 1 Information in an e-mail to the author, from George Mamby, July, 2008. 2 Interview with the Artist, Lin Xu, 2008. .
	Back