Ryze(Zewei) Xu (He/Him) is a ceramicist and multimedia artist originally from Tangshan, China. Ryze received BFA in ceramics from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. He recently received his MFA in Ceramics from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Artist’s Statement
Ceramics,
much like history, might be understood as a succession of disasters. The often-punishing
unpredictability of the medium is at the center of my practice, in which
destruction and debris are embraced as inherent aspects of artmaking. Yet, it
is not about the broken pieces we have, but the ways we choose to piece them
back together. My work takes shape via shards and fragments, through
collecting, stacking, and mending material like layers of sediment, rubble, even
scabs — the protection and reconstruction of wounded skin. Pieces are compiled,
wrapped, and supported by a range of materials, including clay, cardboard, and
steel, forming objects that memorialize their own breakage, becoming something
new. The medium becomes an ongoing event or occasion of sorts, the fragility
and peril of the material allowing me to see the rubble of being as a starting
place.
Through
my dialogue with the debris, I know how vital a foothold as small as a shard
can be — shards of history, memory, and pain. As a young Chinese immigrant, I
sometimes think of my own life as an unfolding against a landscape of broken-off
stories—collective narratives of natural disasters (including tk specifically)
and political upheaval, and the more personal, fragmented memories of
migration, domestic violence and family trauma.
Making
ceramics can feel a lot like a
fresh start in a country in which you don’t know the language or mores yet. It
can be vulnerable-making and tedious; it can be a lonely venture filled with
unexpected peril. Clay is a material
that blows up, splatters, and collapses. A wrong step can result in kiln-loads
full of shattering and crazing; exploded shards and bits stuck to other pieces
— all of which can lead to heartbreak and tears.
My
dialogue with debris acts as both a metaphor and a guide for navigating the
scars and ruptures of cross-generational wounds that become integrated as part
of an unwieldy, ever-evolving self. stuck in a constantly in flux, tottering
between one continent and another, belonging to neither. And yet I’ve come to believe
there are riches to be found in the ad-hoc, in the in-between, in the wonky.
Artmaking
is a ritual of improvisation and reconstruction, of reflection and unlearning.
It has become, increasingly, a modality of healing. Through material
exploration, breakage becomes an essential element; the finished form a
testament to survival, or a new definition of beauty.
For me, the ceramics process is one of
migration, where every step is a unique way of moving forward, and where to be
lost is never to be wrong, but simply more.