Beijing Commune is pleased to present “Temperature,” a solo exhibition by Liu Jianhua (b. 1962). The exhibition features a compelling series of recent ceramic works that illuminate the artist's enduring engagement with ceramic as a medium, while continuing his profound investigation into the dialogues between form and material, medium and perception, and the individual within their environment.
The representation of natural forms in ceramic art finds its origins in primal expression, while such shapes often convey an idealized vision of the relationship between the subject and their surroundings. As the medium has evolved toward greater refinement and delicacy, ceramic art has retained an underlying sense of order within its formal language. In his practice, Liu Jianhua consistently challenges and reimagines the perceptual possibilities of ceramics. To him, the notion of giving form, from clay to ceramic, is less a physical interaction between material and form than a metaphysical dialogue: form imposes structure upon the material, while the material itself subtly informs and reshapes the form. Delving deep into this nuanced interplay between form and substance, Liu probes ways of knowing and perceiving integral to the medium through which he explores unique ways of connection with the world.
In his earlier works, Liu Jianhua has rendered natural forms with striking illusionism. Undermining the cultural significance associated with the marriage between natural form and ceramic medium, the tension between the true and the false edges towards the material’s tactility—their density, glaze, and earthy essence. In the exhibition, the motif of "trees" emerges, instead, through an assemblage of abstract, vaguely similar components. Unconstrained by the technical refinement for realistic representation, the richly textured surface of each compositional piece is not an emulation of the tree bark;; instead, they register the palpable traces of engagement between the artist’s touch and the clay. For this body of work, Liu introduces an innovative mixture of refractory and pottery clays, a combination he prizes for its distinct, raw vitality reminiscent of primitive artifacts. In this practice, every aspect of ceramic making—from the interaction between the hand and the material to the glaze application and the kiln fire—shifts from being a method of control to becoming a participant in a dynamic relationship.
For Liu Jianhua, the work in this exhibition stems from a deeply improvisational mode of labour. The uncertainties embedded in their creation reveal ceramics not as a closed medium, but as a dynamic field modulated by sorts of “temperature”—the temperature of the clay, the hand, the kiln, the imagery, and the temporal gap between past and present. It is a temperature of growth as well as suppression, activity and hibernation, a dynamic in which myriad forces continuously interact and transform one another. The resulting primitive quality alludes not to a regression in techniques or forms but to a state where material remains in active dialogue and imagination with its surroundings and the future. Ceramics, in Liu's practice, act essentially as a vital channel between the individual and their environment, intimately connected to the present. As the artist states, the very uncertainty amid various forces is “the most authentic state of material and things ‘connecting’ and ‘interacting’ with one another.”
