以夢為馬

您当前的位置:首页 >> 以夢為馬 >> 浏览文章

The Exclusive Interview Of Ceramic Artist Chris Ma
浏览次数:781次 更新时间:2022-02-23

by Xinyi Yang

Journalist: Lei Shi

 



图片Chris Ma

The guest professor of Hong Kong Metropolitan University’s School of Science and Technology

The consultant of Cheng Ho Art&Culture Centre

The art director of Singapore Chinese Arts Company

The director of Australia Protected Crops Holding Pty Ltd. 


Chris Ma, who lives in Australia, likes climbing, hiking, swimming, and fishing, but the term Outdoor Activities” has a different meaning for him. He often needs to travel through various states or provinces and enters deserts or ridges to sift through the sands and mud, set fire, and leave no stone unturned, which he really enjoys.

The ceramic artist Chris Ma was born in Hong Kong and moved to Sydney, Australia, in the 1990s. Due to his work, he often flies to Asian countries. He visits remote villages to conduct field experiments with their local agricultural institutions, aiming to restore and fix their soil problems caused by overusing chemicals and fertilizers. 

Since 2003, Chris has visited over 20 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions in China, including areas as far as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Northeast China, Hainan Island. He uses earthworm liquid organic fertilizer to nourish the soil; therefore, plants such as tea, cotton, rice, tomato, cucumber, grape, watermelon, hops, strawberry, durian, papaya, purple sweet potato, chili, and dragon fruit can grow.

 图片图片图片

In addition to experimental farming, he is passionate about art and prefers making firing ceramics in the wild instead of in a workshop. He enjoys mixing mud and chopping firewoods.

 

After years of doing field experiments in different countries, touching different soils and organic crops, and being stimulated by various environments, the revelation he had, by connecting with nature, inspired his urge inside and stirred his consciousness and deep subconsciousness. Suddenly, ideas started to fly unlimitedly. Just look at his Between Wood and Stone” series. Wood! Stone! He rapped the clay with woods, just like an old Chinese saying —— spare the rod and spoil the child! None of the pieces of his series are identical, and the feelings of wood and stone are inextricably blended, resulting in his Between Wood and Stone” series, which is now collected by many parties such as the Hong Kong Museum of Art and the University of British Columbia.

图片

图片

 

Chris participated in an Anagama workshop, which is an ancient kiln that only uses firewood, in Tokoname, Japan. There was a pile of firewoods by the kiln to use in the three days. They used a day to build the kiln, and the Master focused the sunlight through a magnifying glass to light the firewoods, which would last for three days and nights. Participants took turns watching the flame for 24hrs during three days. The wood was burnt into ash by the blazing fire; ash melted into a glaze at a high temperature, and the glaze and pottery formed the stoneware. Whether it can become a remarkable art piece depends on whether the kiln god is favored!

 

The 1.2-meter height Awaken was finally finished. The fallen ashes formed the metallic silver and gray shade on the outside; coarse ceramic shards covered the bottom, and the long curved neck stretched out towards the sky.

 

This is the true reflection of Chris waking up with a bleeding nose and broken teeth at the Shinkansen station after fainting accidentally due to shock on his way to Tokoname, Nagoya from Tokyo. The symbolic coarse ceramic shards continue to become a creative element of his art piece —— Experience. Pottery Road starts to elaborate on life due to Experience. Pottery Road is a single-plank bridge made by Chris with one handful of mud after another, and every ball of mud imprinted his fingerprint. Pottery Road combines raw mud, half-fired ceramic, and fully fired stoneware. How will you face the unfamiliar, familiar, and half-familiar events? Nevertheless, events will continue to happen and then become your past.


图片

图片

图片

The pottery clay is rough, and the porcelain clay is pure white. Chris often dances with clay, and he is excellent at molding clay and enjoys making good artifacts. He loves molding thin porcelains and shaping creases to make various things such as pot or plate. He said, the formation of creases is based on the communication between mud and people, and one has to follow nature and control the change. Mud has different flexibility and stretchability under different humidity, and one has to follow the aesthetic of natural dynamic in one breath.” Look at the crease on both sides of the white plate and the smoothness in the middle, which harmoniously combined the blanc de Chine and white clay.

 

Different kinds of clay have different temperaments, but an unglazed blanc de Chine fired at a high temperature could appear withered and rigid. Chris showed me a small piece of blanc de Chine crease which was biscuit fired at a high temperature. It was very different, with a sensation of sadness in the shriveling and a feeling that years had passed. It is similar to a piece of carved cloth from a marble statue in a European museum.

图片

图片

图片

图片

Speaking of the years that had passed, Chris recalls arranging a cotton experiment field in the large field in Xinjiang and walking into the Gaochang Ruins in Turpan. Fortunately, I have been to the Gaochang Ruins, which is really a decaying ruin, with high yellow walls and mounds of weathered archways. What a lost civilization! He described the ruins complex as a giant dry-bodied ceramic installation art, standing on the Silk Road, facing the sand and wind! Turpan Basin is the perfect place to exhibit this lost civilization which is romantic.


Two camels were sitting under the yellow sand wall, and Chris went to talk with the Uygur child nearby. Then he mounted the camel and walked slowly away along the wall, led by the child, and came back after a circle. Chris proudly said that he did an artistic act by shaking the bell on the neck of the camel, jingling around the ruins, participating in this giant installation, injecting the element of time art so that the ruins will continue to be civilized.


图片

Lets come back from the giant dry-bodied ceramic installation. Touching the unglazed blanc de Chine, he associated it with a gallery full of broken Renaissance stone statues group collected by the British Museum. 

 

 Chriss History followed this concept. A line of unglazed dry-bodied ceramics in sitting pose. They sit there without the appearance of people or any creature. Several broken bricks with hollow circles are arranged rhythmically in a row according to the size of the collapse. The white porcelain sits on top, unglazed. The white sits on top of the red, the curved white porcelains are dry and broken, and the bricks are broken. They are in a row with the contrast of red and white, soft and hard, rough and naive. There is a pile of broken bricks underneath the bricks with traces of being fired, laying down like the shadow of broken pottery!

 

 Among them, there is a broken and empty brick. The missing one makes people think.

 

Life has many turns; all the effort, winnings, losses, and golden age will become the past. One blossom while one withers, one withers while one blossom. Everything has its way, and they are all bubbles in a dream.

 

But I live a positive life, and all improvement of human civilization is based on accumulating experience and leveling up stage by stage. Looking at the past, the old civilization, the years of gold, is a romantic sigh. If there isnt history, there wont be reminiscence! Settle the mood so that the sweet aftertaste can elevate into strength, continue to set out and fight again in the world.

  

图片

我要报名

姓  名:

邮  件:

手  机:

身份证号:

地  址:

微信号:BJLutuMedia
支付宝账号:lutuchina@vip.sina.com
联系电话:852-53714296  E-mail:oneoutside@qq.com
公司地址:香港九龙旺角通菜街1A-1L威达达商业大厦10/F1003室
版权所有:one tv 京ICP备09094458号-5