Artist Statement

My work explores the balance between dualities—restraint and freedom, memory and loss, dislocation and belonging—shaped by my experience of migration between China and the United States. I approach emotion as a spatial and temporal condition that unfolds through cultural memory, physical form, and lived experience. Rather than illustrating specific emotions, I investigate states that exist before language, creating ceramic sculptures, wall pieces, and installations that give physical presence to feelings that resist definition. Using hand-building, slip casting, and image transfer with porcelain paper clay, I treat clay as a material that records touch, pressure, and traces of time. Organic forms reminiscent of coral, sediment, and bodily matter coexist with geometric structures, expressing tensions between growth and control, vulnerability and stability. Through these relationships, I create environments where emotion is both personal and collective, abstract yet embodied, shaped by memory, displacement, and survival.

My practice is informed by Daoist and Confucian philosophies, particularly ideas of balance, interconnectedness, and cyclical transformation. Rather than offering fixed meanings, the work invites contemplation and reflection. Like the natural world, emotions are constantly changing and evolving. Through ambiguity, fragility, and accumulation, I create spaces for empathy and introspection, where viewers can encounter the shifting relationships between memory, identity, and belonging. By bringing together organic and constructed forms, personal experience and collective histories, my work reflects on how emotions persist, transform, and connect us across time, place, and culture.

RESUME

Biography

Renqian Yang is an artist and Associate Professor of Ceramics at the SUNY Oswego in New York. She received her B.F.A. in Ceramics from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2009 and her M.F.A. from Syracuse University in 2014. Yang’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States and internationally, including in the United Kingdom, China, South Korea, and Japan. In 2024, her work was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum for its permanent collection.

Yang is currently featured in the exhibition Dimensions: Contemporary Chinese Studio Crafts at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, London. She also has a solo exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York. Her recent exhibitions include the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art (2025), the Shiwan Ceramics Museum (2023), the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design (2021), and the National Assembly of South Korea (2023). Yang has been awarded artist residencies at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Craigardan, Jingdezhen International Studio, and STARworks Ceramics. She was also featured in the 15th Anniversary Edition of Ceramics Now Magazine.

SOLO EXHIBITION

  •  Neither Here nor Elsewhere, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, June 13-August 16, 2026

  • Folding Time Between Worlds, Tyler Art Gallery, SUNY Oswego, Oswego, NY, Oct 14 - Nov 15, 2024.

  • Renqian Yang: Retrace, Taoxichuan Jingdezhen International Studio, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China, Dec 25, 2023 - Jan 31, 2024.

  • Renqian Yang: Sounds of the Ephemeral, Fou Gallery, New York, April 3–June 6, 2021.

  • Renqian Yang, The Cayuga Museum of History and Art, Auburn, New York, August 15–September 14, 2019.

  • Renqian Yang: Construct Deconstruction, Taoxichuan Ceramic Art Avenue Art Gallery, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China, June 16–June 30, 2018.

  • Renqian Yang: Complementary Colors, Fou Gallery, New York, January 14–March 19, 2017.

SELECTED JURIED/GROUP EXHIBITIONS

  • Qinghua, Liu Haisu Art Museum, Shanghai, China, June 5 – July 16, 2026

  • Dimensions: Contemporary Chinese Studio Crafts. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, South Kensington, UK, October 28, 2025-September 17, 2026

  • ReCurrents, Gandee Gallery, Fabius, NY, September-October 2025

  • Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, The Art Center, Dover, NH, Sep 8–Oct 31, 2025.

  • Here & Now: Artists of Central New York, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, June 28–August 24, 2025

  • Currents in Contemporary Ceramic Art, Featherstone Center for the Arts, Martha’s Vineyard, Oak Bluffs, MA, June 29 – July 20, 2025

  • Shaping the Formless: Fluidity in Eternity, PAINTIQUE, Shanghai, China, June 5 – July 27, 2025

  • NCECA 2024: Mapping the multiverse, Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, Glen Allen, VA, March 14 - April 28, 2024

  • Temperature: International Ceramics Art Exchange Exhibition, Ceramic Art Avenue Art Gallery of Qiumo, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China, Oct 17 - 19, 2023.

  • Beyond the Image, Shiwan cup, Emerging Artist Ceramic Sculpture exhibition, Shiwan Ceramics Museum, Foshan, Guangdong, China, Oct 20-Dec 17, 2023.

  • Korea-China Ceramic Art Exhibition, celebrating the 31st anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea, Korean National Assembly Hall, South Korea, September 11-13,2023.

  • NCECA 2023: Contemporary Narratives, Concurrent exhibition, ADC Fine Art Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 15-18, 2023

  • NCECA 2023: We Gather Each Other Up, Concurrent exhibition, ADC Fine Art Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 15-18,2023.

  • Korea-China Ceramic Art Exhibition, Hasoul Gallery, Icheon, South Korea, December 22-30, 2022

  • “With Roots Deep, Foliage Thrives – 根 深 叶 茂”- A Vision of Chinese Artists in American Academia 2022, Art and Design Exhibition, Foster-Tanner Fine Arts Gallery. Florida A&M University, November 8-December 2, 2022

  • “International KOGEI Award in TOYAMA 2020” Exhibition, Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design, Toyama Japan, February 25–April 4, 2021

  • “Rivers Connect: Unstoppable Forces in Contemporary Ceramics” Group Exhibition, Northern Kentucky University Art Gallery, Highland Heights, Kentucky, March 5th-April 5th, 2021, NCECA exhibition

  • “Riverfront” 20/20”, The Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington, DE, June 5th-November 5th, 2020

  • “Downeast: A National Juried Sculpture Exhibition”, Don Edwards Gallery, Emerge Gallery & Art Center, Greenville, NC, March 6, 2020 - March 26, 2020

  • “LUSH: A Contemporary Ceramics Exhibition”, Group Exhibition, the Lighthouse Art Center in Tequesta, Florida, November 11, 2019 - January 4, 2020

  • “The Paradox of Pleasure”, The Maverick Expo # 6, 195 Chrystie Street, NYC, April 30- May 5, 2019

  • “18 Cubed”, International Ceramics Exhibition, Aqua Art Fair, Miami Beach, FL, December 5-9, 2018

  • “Topia and City”, Jizhunfangzhong Art Space, Group Exhibition, Chengdu, China October 26–December 26, 2018

  • “Environmentally Aware”, Clay Arts Vegas, Nevada, Las Vegas, May 3-May 27, 2018

  • “Abstract Art in Dialogue”, New York School of Interior Design Gallery, New York   City, NY, January 24–29, 2017

  • “Rare Earth”- National Ceramics Exhibition, Cabrillo Gallery, CA, October 3– 28, 2016

  • “Migrating”, Art Scene Today, January 2016

SELECTED COLLECTION

2024  (Permanent collection) Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK

2023 Taoxichuan Jingdezhen International Studio collection, Jingdezhen, China

2022  Untitled, STARworks Ceramics permanent collection, Star, NC

2018 Fabricated Construction (重造筑建), Taoxichuan International Ceramics studio collection, Jingdezhen, China

RESIDENCIES 

  • Jingdezhen International Studio, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China, Sep 26th-Dec 28th, 2023

  • Kiln God Award, Clay in the Expanded Field: May 22-June 2, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME, 2023                                     

  • Summer Residency, STARworks Ceramics, Star, NC, 2022

  • Summer Residency, Craigardan, Keene, New York, 2018

  • Summer Residency, Jingdezhen International Studio, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China, 2018

  • Summer Residency, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME, 2017                                

  • Residency, Chautauqua School of Art, Chautauqua, NY, 2012

SELECTED NEWS

SELECTED CATALOGUES AND PUBLICATIONS

  • Ceramics Now Magazine, featured artist, 15th Anniversary Edition, December 2025

  • Across the Divide, edited by Wei Zhen and Yan Li. Features my artwork, teaching project, and student works in a 20-year academic exchange archive. Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House (湖南美术出版社).

  • Tempture, Taoxichuan Spring & Autumn Art Fair, Jingdezhen, China, Oct 17th-19th 2023 exhibition catalog.

  • Beyond the Image, Shiwan cup, Emerging Artist Ceramic Sculpture competition exhibition Catalog, Shiwan Ceramics Museum, Foshan, Guangdong, China.

  • Interview with Renqian yang, by Ann Shi, Houston Asian American Archive, Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University

  •   “Korea-China Ceramic Art Symposium” catalog, ye’s park ceramics art village, Icheon, South Korea, 2022

  • “With Roots Deep, Foliage Thrives – 根 深 叶 茂”- A Vision of Chinese Artists in American Academia 2022, Art and Design Exhibition catalog.

  • Rivers Connect Unstoppable Forces in Contemporary Ceramics, exhibition catalog, Northern Kentucky University, Syracuse University.2021

  • “International KOGEI Award in TOYAMA 2020” Exhibition catalog, Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design, Toyama Japan, 2021

  • Renqian Yang: Urban Microcosmos (exhibition brochure). Text by Echo He. New York: Fou Gallery, 2018.

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