Courtesy: the artist and N.Smith Gallery, Sydney.

‘The choice of characters ties everything back to Chinese nostalgia. It’s a clash of contemporary characters with ones that have been around for more than 500 years…’

⁠For Casey Chen, the vessel represents all things enduring. History, family, & customs are recontextualised when childhood nostalgia is blended with long-standing East Asian ceramic traditions. By applying this imagery to hand-thrown plates and vessels, Chen creates a cultural pastiche – a dynamic conversation between traditional craft and contemporary perspective.

108 Stars and Spirits is a reference to the bandit outlaws of the 108 Heroes that appear within the Water Margin – a Chinese story about a group of outlaws who become local heroes after first fighting the local government and later saving the region from a nomadic invasion.

‘They’re morally grey characters that range from being fundamentally good (but aids and abets the actions of the bad characters) and straight up villainous. This was a book written during the Ming Dynasty and a lot of values and attitudes are incredibly backwards and dated to read. But this is a story that has stayed with me and is one of the Chinese classical novels that my Nan bought for me and encouraged me to read when I was younger.’

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