Open window jar and smart tree
(2023)
Medium
porcelain
Measurements
(23.0 × 21.0 × 23.5 cm)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of the artist and Vermillion Art, 2024
© Geng Xue
Gallery location
Asian Art - Chinese Gallery
Level 1, NGV International
About this work
Geng Xue’s artistic practice seeks to find balance between contemporary sensibilities and traditional artistic themes and techniques. Her fantastical narrative works facilitate a deep conversation between history, literature, music, art and nature, transporting us to worlds both strange and familiar, blending reality and folk stories.
In these works, Geng used the globally recognised blue-cobalt underglaze porcelain technique associated with Jingdezhen and Dehua, the regions of China associated with ceramic-producing since the fourteenth century. Geng’s hand-crafted works look to the traditional and familiar style functions of plates, dishes and vessels by incorporating spiritual figures, ornate faces and extended organic appendages to create otherworldly scenes. Randomly scattered fragments suggest they could have once been part of a larger work. Through this, the artist explores histories that have been reconstructed through the retelling of handed-down mythologies.