Greenware, Crockery, Chinawear
Contemporary Ceramic Jewelry by Shu-Lin Wu & Peter Hoogeboom
Montreal, April 28, 2014 – For their first joint exhibition, Shu-Lin Wu and Peter Hoogeboom, two exceptional artists, designers of contemporary jewellery in ceramics, chose the intriguing title Greenware, Crockery, Chinawear. Initiated by Noel Guyomarc’h, this exhibition will be presented from May 9 to June 8, 2014, before travelling to the United States, Thailand, China and the Netherlands.
To see at their work, click on Artists
Born in Taipei in 1980, Shu-Lin Wu received a B.A. from Fu-Jen Catholic University and then enrolled at the École supérieure des beaux-arts de Strasbourg, in France, where she earned two degrees in the visual arts. Seeking opportunities for experimentation and research, she participated in a number of international workshops. Now living in Taipei, she is regularly invited to take part in exhibitions. Peter Hoogeboom, born in 1961 in Leiden, the Netherlands, is a graduate of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, in Amsterdam, the city where he still lives and works. The first jewellery artist to apply contemporary techniques to porcelain, he has participated in a number of international exhibitions and many of his works can be found in museum and private collections. Shu-Lin and Peter have both been represented by Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h for several years.
A meeting, an invitation, a project – They first met in 2010, in Limoges, France, at the opening of Un peu de terre sur la peau, an exhibition organized by the Fondation Bernardaud and conceived by Monikka Brugger, which shows various applications of ceramics in contemporary jewellery. This exhibition, which has travelled to Europe, Asia and North America, will be shown in Seoul at the World Jewellery Museum, next May. Shu-Lin and Peter met again, at the openings in Taipei and Paris. When, in 2012, Noel Guyomarc’h offered them a joint exhibition, their meetings took on a different character. With great enthusiasm, they began to exchange ideas and share techniques and materials, discoveries and secrets. They visited each other and worked together, sometimes In Taipei, sometimes in Amsterdam, finding inspiration in each other’s environment. Earthenware, the clay traditionally used in the Netherlands, but rarely in Asia, became the primary material of Shu-Lin’s new work. Inversely, Peter experimented with porcelain clay slip, a sealant used in ceramics, and the mokume-gane technique, consisting of incisions and slits that reveal the colours of underlying layers of clay.
Straddling the line between aestheticism and eroticism, between the traditional and the contemporary, between East and West, these works elicit fascination and confusion in the viewer. Shu-Lin creates forms that evoke the erotic, inher mind conforming to the image people have of Amsterdam, while Peter strives to express the abundance he discovered in Taiwanese nature and produce, which he transforms into fantasy fruits reminiscent of each artist’s country of origin.While this exhibition includes some pieces from the artists’ earlier collections, the focus is on the results of their collaboration.
Greenware, Crockery, Chinawear – Greenware refers to the unfired clay object, the raw material that provides inspiration. Crockery signifies both pottery and dishes, alluding to certain elements found in this jewellery but also to the sounds it makes when worn. Chinawear is a play on words referring to porcelain, a material that originated in China, and to these wearable works!
Read the interview by Susan Cummins with Peter and Shu-Lin Art Jewelry Forum
