‘Renee So is a playful observer of objects and the stories that accrue to them over time... So has evolved an art practice that engages conceptually and materially with traditional (and ancient) craft forms that more often sit outside the short, official histories of modern and contemporary art... __Geographically dispersed figurines with similar bodily representations, and clay vessels with anthropomorphic features are some of the formal tendencies that So picks up on and iterates in her works. Recurring motifs include portrait busts; anthropomorphised bottles and jugs, many with faces, arms akimbo, or joined to boots; tripod-footed vessels; figures depicted in profile; full manly bellies; full womanly bottoms; large, ballooning pants; and beards with tight curls. More recently, bottles referencing the nineteenth-century British-influenced opium trade in China have become part of her formal vocabulary, telling stories of imperial supremacy, the Western gaze and commodification.’

Charlotte Day for Renee So: Provenance (2023).

The exhibition includes a new body of ceramic works from So’s ‘Woman’ stoneware series that draw upon early fertility idols and Venus figures celebrating the female form, alongside new Snuff bottle sculptures including a lemon, a nose, a poppy and a Pekingese dog. Inspired by the use of ceramics and glass in architecture and public spaces, she presents wall-based tiled works and has introduced stained-glass as a medium into her practice.

Press release courtesy Kate MacGarry