Wei-K’s Visions

The Advent of Wei-K

Wei-K was conceived in 2019 after attending a talk given by Keith Brymer Jones in Glasgow City College where WeiKeong started daydreaming, wondering what it will be like if he was the one giving the talk instead. A sense of fright suddenly enveloped him and he wanted to hide into a pot, just like a person having a paper bag over him to remain anonymous, away from the attention.

Since then, he began to reflect on his relationship with ceramics and investigate into the essence of ceramic – how have pottery been used and valued throughout history.

Conversations

Art on Conversations:

⁣We communicate to build relationships between people and in any imaginable scenarios, a picture has been painted

— 27th July 2020 —

Wei-K’s Visions from Within

The different challenging perspectives of Wei-K’s Vision.

— 25th May 2020 —

COVID Caricatures in Lockdown

The CoVID virus has turned everyone’s life upside down, feeling concerned and anxiety. With the Government introducing society lockdown measures to control the spread of the virus, all non-essential workplaces are closed. With the ceramic facilities considered as non-essential, Wei-K began creating imaginary alter-egos to keep him accompanied through the CoVid situations.

— 21st May 2020 —

Empty Vessels

Ceramic vase on glass pane.

A pretty vase with a narrow neck that almost does not give it a function except to be beautiful.

In the current context of social media pressurising people to have the perfect beauty, I often ponder how this standards are being judged as the idea of beauty is very subjective and also the impact it creates on the mental health of people. In getting caught up with the notion to be popular in social media, through “perfect, pretty” photos, people are living a life that is split between ‘social media’ reality and ‘physical’ reality.

— 5th Feb 2020 —

Cracks

A broken base after the glaze firing. Wei-K attempt to preserve it using Araldite epoxy glue and black electrical tape to bound it tightly but the cracks are forever be apparent. There is a sadness that somethings just can’t be preserved and repaired. The more one forcefully bound them together, more frustration surfaces.

— 10th January 2020 —

Aesthetics

The discussion of aesthetics often came up in Wei-K’s works. Everyone develops their tastes subjectively on appearances based on their influences in life. Having had a background in design during early formative years, Wei-K found itself in a fight between making objects and artworks. Should artworks have a function, and if so, what is the function of an artwork? These little narrowed neck vases can possibly only hold a stalk of flower and beyond that is just an object of appearance. With the ever increasing important issues surrounding us on climate crisis, Wei-K questions itself such self-indulgence is essential, both as a maker and a consumer.

— 15th December 2019 —

Chatterbox

The development of speech-bubble shaped porcelain plate continues and took on another form using a combination of different techniques – slab making and pottery wheel trimming. Wei-K constantly returned to the idea of conversation plates due to its frustrations to talk about ideas with fellow colleagues and family. Was it the differences in cultural or educational background, it felt Wei-K searching for an answer. In all desperation, he decided dished out another series of conversation plates talking about Man(kind) relationship with Nature through Wei-K mother tongue.

“As a Chinese we developed our language through observing elements of Nature. However, as each Culture has evolved, we have gradually risen above Nature and started to exploit and manipulate Her.”

— 23rd November 2019 —

Let’s talk Glasgow

In the summer of 2016 Wei-K relocated to Glasgow city from Haarlem/Amsterdam and something struck Wei-K deeply. Having never lived in Glasgow before, Wei-K explored many facets of Glasgow and its uniqueness from other cities.

There are plenty of times where Wei-K finds good energy vibes from the city for inspiration and trying new ideas, the warmth from people are also very welcoming. However, at the same time, Wei-K find plenty of frustration with people’s attitude about not taking care of the city, especially with the issues of littering, smoking, drinking and vandalising of public properties. Hence in this set of porcelain wares, Wei-K celebrate both the uniqueness of the diversity of Glaswegians, as well as its contradiction. Different people were asked to say the word Glasgow, which was then recorded and translated into soundwaves onto speech-bubble shaped porcelain plates.

They say “People Make Glasgow”, it is very true.

— 14th March 2019 —