HE XIANGYU

Drawing on the artist’s own relocation to China in 2023, He Xiangyu’s new works continue his interest in utilising traditional craft to explore social, and political themes, as well as the ways in which material itself carries cultural signifiers. Working in Jingdezhen, a region that has been a major site for ceramic production in China for over one thousand years, He builds his sculptures using the coil method, a technique in which repeated coils are stacked to build form. Undergoing an intensive, weeklong firing process, the resulting works take the form of anonymous dwellings.

Combined with elements made of poured, molten aluminium throughout the gallery, their uncanny architecture is defined by what they lack, as the singular, carved windows are isolated on the facades of each structure. Available light seeps into each work’s open void, dissipating by the time it can reach the bottom, casting light as an increasingly finite resource. In turn this becomes a reflection of an uncertain future, especially as cities continue to swell around us. And as with other resources, the question of access gains more urgency as they begin to dwindle, as well as what barriers are put in place to control them, and who gets to decide who they are for. These works are shown alongside Hazy Windows, an installation of scattered ceramic plates, whose individual pieces mimic the colour of the sky as it has been depicted in both Eastern and Western painting and cinema. Stacked and arranged, their forms suggest an inventory of the windows missing from his architectural forms, a meditation on what can be made from what is lost.