Time was when potters could be executed for failing to please the emperor, but things have changed since then, says Beijing ceramic artist Feng Shu, exhaling in mock relief. Feng's refusal to bow to traditional grandeur makes him part of an emerging wave of ceramic artists on the mainland. 'I don't find the weight of the past a burden,' says the 26-year-old, who's gaining recognition for work such as Insects.
The collection, which features delicate, metre-long ceramic mosquitoes, praying mantises and dragonflies that hover on steel legs, refines and expands on Feng's graduation work at the Central Academy of Fine Art. Inspired by his childhood spent playing by a river, the mixed-material creations were developed over three years and have been shown in Mexico and Finland.
But the past still casts a shadow over the art form. Critics say mainland potters, especially in traditional production centres such as Jingdezhen, have avoided innovation, sticking instead to reproducing successful imperial forms. There's little modern expression of ceramics on the mainland, unlike painting or music which attract intense interest at home and abroad.
Bai Ming is among a few well-known ceramicists trying to break free from the cultural and institutional straitjackets that prevent many Chinese potters from attaining the creative stature of contemporaries from South Korea and Japan. It may take the mainland 10 years to catch up with them but the first shoots are there, he says.
'The technical skills of traditional-style potters at Jingdezhen or Longquan are very high but Chinese ceramicists need to become masters of their own creativity,' says Bai, who also teaches art at Tsinghua University
in Beijing. 'The beauty of the past arts can draw you in and trap you. Many young people dream of escaping that.'
