Ceramics Artist: Creation is a Buddhist, Meditative and Spiritual Journal

An interview with Chenxi Wang, a ceramics artist and his work

“What’s the identified style of your ceramic creation?” I asked Chenxi Wang. He is one of my fellows who comes from Sichuan, a province of China. I first saw him on a gallery website with the exhibition of his breathtaking ceramic works. He didn’t answer my question directly, instead handled me a cup of tea gently and read a poem with his soft voice:

“The wings of ephemera are elaborate and neat,

though its life is as ephemeral as one day.

But as a human, what will I look like in the afterlife? W

here will I place my soul after death?”

This little beautiful poem is from the ancient Book of Poetry in Chinese, which was written dated back to the early years of the Western Zhou dynasty. He explained “this poem is my state of mood that conceptualizes my art thesis while crafting the work. For me, the making of ceramics is religious (Buddhist), meditative and spiritual.” Ceramics is a time-consuming material to be worked with. The timeness and substance that existed in ceramics conducts himself to the field of meditation, peace, and devotion.

“The complex and long-term process of creation slows my step down on the earth,” he added. The overall creative process is just like the firing process of pottery, they all need to be refined by time: with an original concept, artists will need to plan out the details of the project. Once the artist has an idea in mind, they will need to plan out the details of the project. This might involve selecting the type of clay they want to use, determining the size and shape of the piece, and deciding on any surface treatments or glazes. The artist will also need to gather all the necessary tools and materials. The next step is to begin building the piece. This could involve using a pottery wheel to shape the clay or using hand-building techniques like pinching, coiling, or slab building. Once the piece is complete, it will need to be fired in a kiln. This involves heating the clay to a high temperature, which transforms it into a durable ceramic material. Depending on the type of clay and the firing process, this step could take several hours or even days. After the piece has been fired once, the artist may choose to add glaze or other surface treatments. The final step in the process is to finish the piece. While talking, he further pointed out one of his works “White Bodies” with a narrative that the progressive practice of coil-building or throwing somehow pacifies him to discursive thinking.

This is the everyday job of Chenxi Wang: “The ceramics are the relatively permanent evidence that I left over the world, and it embodies my delicate existence in the infinite universe. At the same time, the durability of ceramics helps extend my small life like the burnt traces on the snowfield.” The work helps the embodiment of his limited life remaining in this dimension. The repetition he made textured the voluminous jars which manifested the eternity of physical ceramic objects. For example, hand building spherical jars, moon jars, and throwing on a wheel, Chenxi Wang’s addiction to Buddha statue making allows him to meditate within the moving coils and throwing marks, creating divine bodies. His work “White Bodies” series features porcelain sculptures of white moons, pagodas, cicadas and Buddhittsava. He layered and drew multiple glazes and underglazes to imitate watercolor painting. Soda firing employed a traditional technique that imbues them with fuzzy, aged and ancient quality, evoking the time passing. The firing embellishes the complexity of clay and glazesand allows him to create works that encapsulate the sense of eternity in symbolic forms. The indigo, jade green and gold on the Buddhittsava, cicada, and pagodas evoke transcendence, often manifesting the nature of the divine.

Chenxi Wang, Documentary “Merging Jar”

Chenxi, Wang, “White Bodies”

But my question is what is eternity? Chenxi Wang quoted an ancient Chinese poem “As the bright moon shines over the sea, from far away you share this moment with me”. This poem inspired him to deliberate the answer for this question, through the performance. He documents a video "Merging Jar" for his work “White Bodies”. He takes out his design drawing of the project and elaborates “I decided to make a moonjar and to keep it unfired. I then sent this thrown moon jar to the Atlantic Ocean. I filmed the whole process of the jar leaving from the shore as the tide went out.” With his description, a vivid picture seemed to be displayed in front of my horizon. The moonjar started to soak in water and softened itself. Gradually, the foot of the jar tore off the body; the jar suddenly floated on the top of the water. The moonjar was oscillating with the waves gently touching it. Reflecting with the moon, silent in the darkness, the moonjar calmly faded away in the deep blue ocean. The low tide went out. The night sky approached, and the sea was out after a moment. There seemed to be no one coming by. Except for light snow, all was still.

By listening to Chenxi Wang’s creative ideas, I was astonished by his originality and understanding of ceramics materials. Is this idea taught by class, definitely not. So, I question him curiously “Where do these ideas come from, it is derived from your personal experience, self-identification or social background?” He replies, “There is self-redemption, self-knowledge, and self-discovery. But more comes from the initial intuitive exploration, and I will substantialize the idea into clay -- the birth of life” It’s important for ceramics artists to discover themselves, since the creative process can be very lonely because there are limited references from previous ceramic works, and one can only constantly explore in the dark on their own.

A year of study in Jingdezhen, a famous cultural city with a long history of ceramics, inspire Chenxing’s way. The local lifestyle in Jingdezhen revolves around ceramics. Everywhere in this city, reveals city's deep-rooted cultural heritage in its architecture, museums, and markets. The streets are lined with stores selling all kinds of porcelain and pottery, from traditional blue-and-white ware to more contemporary designs. “By connecting with the local community, it build a connection between me and craft, which raise my awareness about ceramics. ” claimed from Chenxi. As he continued his studies, several artists from both China and overseas offered him a fresh perspective on the form of ceramic art.

Chenxi Wang’s studio in Jingdezhen -

Several artists, especially Isamu NOGUCHI, offer great impressions for Chenxi Wang. NOGUCHI’s work is a repository againsts time. Fragile objects like ceramics need protection, but even without this need there is a semblance of eternity, a sense of permanence that is implied by a work, and a removal from time’s passage. 

- Isame NOGUCHI, Sun at noon (1969)

To show the meditative reflection upon eternity and fragility, another project of Chenxi Wang “White Pagoda” documented the process of building, installing, and firing a paper kiln. He built a paper kiln in the shape of a white pagoda with a group of people across different cultures and countries. It is made up of numerous paper tiles that are folded by locally collected daily newspapers. He spent two weeks sewing and constructing them as a white pagoda, a Buddhist symbol of enlightened perception and awareness. What planned for this delicate paper construction was to burn it out and let it fade away. The White Pagoda burned for 6 hours on a night with light snow and finally disappeared into ashes. They were firing, glittering, and flying away with the winter breeze. The white pagoda also works as a paper kiln in which four white moon jars were installed that took on a gentle pink color after burning.

Chenxi Wang, White Pagoda

It is attractive how delicate and breakable the ceramics could be as a material in people’s art. The fragility of ceramics makes it an appealing medium. The weakness and thinness of the work metaphorically presents the sentiment that Chenxi Wang glimpsed at the fragility of our lives. In the future career, it’s hard for Chenxi Wang to decide which specific path to explore. But he believes, as an international ceramic maker with experiences studying in both the US and China, he will bring innovative, alternative but also local approaches to his work. He said, “I aim to be reciprocal with my involvement as an international artist in the work and bring fresh energy, Asian traditional folk art cultural identities and a diverse teaching style.”

“What’s your advice for a student like you, who is interested in the Ceramic domain?” I asked him at the end of the interview. He smiled, “Don't get discouraged if success doesn't come right away. Keep practicing.”