Tianyao Skye Ju

Born in China, Skye Ju holds an MA in Curating Science from the University of Leeds (2019) and a BFA in Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2017). Now she is a freelance artist studying ceramics and glass at the Royal College of Art specializing in sculptural tableware and ceramic installations.

She also studied anthropology at Michigan State University for two years, where she was on the Dean's List. She engaged in Asian culture and architecture study at the Seoul National University, and accessories design study at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti.

In 2019, Skye Ju was selected as an intern in the Henry Moore Institute Yorkshire working on the project Sculpture International 2019, Sculpture as Fieldwork/the Sculptor as Fieldworker. In Summer 2018, Skye went to the OCT Contemporary Art Terminal Institute as a researcher to do literature research for the annual lecture and exhibition, Metapictures: Images and the Discourse of Theory.

For commissions and prices, please contact skyeju.art@outlook.com

Skye Ju is a ceramic artist specializing in sculptural tableware and installation. Her practice concerns ideas of space, sentiment, and nature. Every tree and bush in nature is close to human feeling. Her work is a medium to find a breathing-room in life.

Throwing clay is her essential approach to creation. The elements that appear in her works are usually repetitive. Repeatability represents the power of slowness and peace, which makes her feel calm, secure, and at ease. With her choice of energetic glaze color, Skye provides an imaginary environment and atmosphere for herself and her audience.

Starting from D. W. Winnicott’s concept of the ‘transitional object’, Skye Ju believes that art can be the transitional object providing the artist’s psychological consolation. The material properties and production methods of ceramics are part of the transitional object for Skye. For her, a significant goal of making art is to achieve a sense of control through self-reflection and healing, which is also a process of seeking herself.

Her ceramics, and her drawings, both make a space to contain the emotions of herself and the audience. In traditional Chinese calligraphy, ‘negative space’ refers to a technique whereby the artist would leave a relatively blank area on the rice paper, conveying a state of leisure from an aesthetic and philosophical point of view. However, Skye is looking for a void to fill with the disturbances and pressures, for herself and people who feel themselves to be put under control. While most of her ceramic works can be used, they were not created to be functional ware. The functionalities that come with her work are unintentional, but the empty space is calculated.

Stretch — Featured in the 7th Chengdu Creativity & Design Week, Collected by Nongyuan International Art Gallery. Skye Ju did this installation, Stretch, during the time that she was doing the artist residency at NY20+ in 2020. She studied how light and shadow achieve a visual extension in space. Porcelain is conventionally considered as a material that has the qualities of fragility and softness, after being fired at 1240 degrees in the kiln, its construction is permanently fixed in time and space.

Sketch on the Porcelain Board with cobalt oxide — Space is not limited to the visual concept, it can also be translated into a materiality context. Skye is interested in simple lines that create the possibility of a visual space through collage and overlap. The form of installation has the particularity of spatial extension. It gives the chance of shuttling in different spatial dimensions.

A Moonlit Night — In ancient Chinese landscape paintings, simple monochromatic lines are used to outline the perspective effect of the landscape. Influenced by this, Skye “paints” by throwing clay on the wheel in a gestural way, full of emotion. Her works are telling a story about freeing herself, feeling nature, and building her own gestural landscape.

A Moonlit Night — Skye enjoys the process of creating scenery on porcelain board through lines. She uses the most significant Chinese ceramic decorating method, which is painted using cobalt oxide. She outlines the underlying structure and sets up her thrown-organic-linear pieces to create a three-dimensional space composed of lines.

Space is not limited to the visual concept, it can also be translated into a materiality context. Skye is interested in simple lines that create the possibility of a visual space through collage and overlap. The form of installation has the particularity of spatial extension. It gives the chance of shuttling in different spatial dimensions.

Medium:

Porcelain and string

Size:

Multiple dimension

Chasing the Trace — Inspired by the Antelope Canyon, Skye was impressed by its unique texture and dynamic shape that was formed by wind and water erosion. This caught her interest and pushed her to think about how even soft material can leave a trace in the space.

Chasing the Trace — In this work, she uses different qualities of sand to give power to the clay’s surface. The different types of clay bodies have different shrinkage rates after firing. Every kiln unloading is full of expectations. This small installation allows her audience to travel through this amazing nature-inspired sculpture.

There are also some ‘microscopic scenes’ hidden in her works to be discovered by the audience. They reside in the space in between the containers. The philosophy of Skye’s art is about how the outer world of containers constructs a small space that can be playful and undisturbed.

Medium:

Stoneware and porcelain

Size:

Various dimensions

Installation landscape Line Material Narratives Narrative Nature Trace Urban Space

Holding — Skye’s works are mainly talking about the relationship between humans, containers, and emotions. Holding is meaningful action. She thinks holding is a personalized action that creates vivid pictures and leads to an interesting dialogue between humans and containers full of vitality. The color connects emotions and dialogue.

Interlocking Vistas — What makes it become a container? Conventional, the functionality of container is carrying material objects, which is a kind of particular function. But Skye insists that what makes it a container is the space inside, the space could carry all material and non-material objects. It could be a motion, could be a part of nature, also could be what we can’t see but want to feel. And containers suggest an act of ‘collection’ and ‘belongings’, which is a very personal behaviour.

Skye studies the container as a symbol that represents human behaviour in many ways.

Medium:

High-white porcelain and deep-yellow-clay

Size:

Various Dimensions

Throwing for Skye is a therapy process of healing her pressure for her daily life. And through the action, she gets more familiar with this material and its possibility.

She is interested in landscape painting and attracted by the concept of ‘negative space’ in ancient Oriental ink painting. She wants to apply this concept to her installation and leave enough space around her objects for audience to apply their imagination. She wants to transfer the natural landscape inside to create everyday scenes and looks at the set up with the eye of an artist, a viewer, and a traveler.

Medium:

High-white-porcelain

Size:

Various dimensions

Bowl Craftsmanship Cup Functional

Inspired by Oriental classical ink painting, Skye sees the porcelain board as her rice paper and uses the element of line and her throwing technique to “paint”.

Medium:

Middle-white-porcelain

Size:

Variou dimensions

Container Functional Vase

Ocean Dome — All the recurring elements are a kind of symbol in her work, conveying her calm and stability when making the same element repeatedly. This form is inspired by the splash caused by throwing something into the water. At the same time, this is also a metaphor for the water splashes caused by people trying to throw away their negative emotions in order to get calm.

Isolated Island — Skye follows the principles of vitality and variability in her choice of glaze. She is constantly experimenting, using different types of clay bodies to achieve different color tones.

Horizon — The outline of the container becomes a horizon line to separate the inside and outside and spread the emotional expansion of the internal space to the external space. Thinking of the container, the audience tends to pay more attention to the independent container itself. But Skye uses the external space of each container to construct an overall environment, leaving the blank inside of the container as a negative space to balance the visual experience.

This project is a collection of visual lyric poetry about the space Skye built for her emotions. She got inspiration from color and space in the nature landscape. She found simple lines from the structure of the mountains and the ripples of the water and combined them to create a small space. But the one thing she loves most in nature is the sea.

Medium:

Middle-white-porcelain

Size:

Various dimensions

Glaze Installation Nature Sea Space Wave

The sea is one of the greatest creations in nature and is used in multiple contexts, symbolizing a strong force of nurturing life. When the sun rises and sets on the sea horizon, the sea becomes a source of experiencing birth and death. Carl Jung considers “the sea” to be “the favorite symbol for the unconscious, the mother of all that lives”, he also writes that “the sea is like music, it has all the dreams of the soul within itself and sounds them over” in Memories, Dreams and Reflections. In William Wordsworth's sonnet, The World Is Too Much With Us, the sea is used to critique the material world. In poet’s writings as in Skye’s work, the sea is always connected with human emotions.

Medium:

Middle-white-porcelain

Size:

Various dimensions

Creature Horizon Installation Nature Ocean Painting Porcelain Sea

Discussion

Ceramics & Glass in Discussion: With Glenn Adamson Wednesday 30 June 12:00 (GMT +0)

Terra IncognitoSensualityMateriality and AbstractionApplied arts

Tianyao Skye Ju

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