01.1612
Bronze Buddha, Ming Dynasty 铜佛像，明代
Yanze Jiang 蒋颜泽
Artist Biography
Yanze Jiang is an associate professor at Nanjing University of the Arts, and a member of IAC. Her works have been selected for many important national and international exhibitions and have won several awards, such as the First Prize in the first BLANC DE CHINE International Ceramic Art Competition, the Premier Award in the 2004 Sydney Myer Fund International Ceramics Award. Her works have been collected by the V&A Museum, the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery (Stoke-on-Trent), Shepparton Art Gallery (Australia), Yingge Ceramic Museum (Taiwan), Korea Ichon World Ceramic Center, among others.
Yanze’s works show a strong sense of self-awareness especially in the juxtapositional views of traditional and contemporary, nationality and internationalism, technique and concept, mass production and single art piece.
“In the past decade, I worked with several ceramic factories to develop designs, and had a residency at these factories. The experiences in these factories gave me more inspiration and influence, and I began to combine factory ceramic elements to my own studio practice. Recently I have been working with discarded honeycomb ceramics, initially applied to clean up exhaust chemicals from automobiles, and now is widely used in various industries. Honeycomb ceramic pieces have countless holes, and the inerratic structural patterns show the beauty of geometry in industrial products. It appeals me to reuse these discarded pieces to make my own art work. Through the work I want to convey the paradoxical relationship between the development of city and the preservation of natural environment. Has the ancient Chinese principle of the supposed harmony between mankind and nature been irrevocably shattered? How can we filter, clean and purify the toxic environment?”
蒋颜泽，南京艺术学院副教授，国际陶艺协会会员。作品多次入选国内外重要展览和比赛，并获得数个重要奖项，首届“中国白”国际陶艺竞赛展一等奖、2004悉尼梅尔基金国际陶艺竞赛首奖等。作品被英国V&A博物馆、斯托克陶瓷博物馆、澳大利亚Shepparton艺术馆、台湾莺歌陶瓷博物馆、韩国利川世界陶艺中心等机构收藏。其创作彰显出一种强烈的“自我意识”，特别是在探讨诸如传统性与现代性、民族性与国际性、技术手段与理念阐释、批量复制与单件保真等复杂课题方面。
在过去的十多年里，我和多家陶瓷企业合作开发陶瓷产品，同时驻厂创作。与工厂的合作经历给我的个人创作带来很多灵感和影响，我开始将产业陶瓷的设计元素结合到创作中。最近几年，蜂窝陶瓷废料成为我创作的重要材料。蜂窝陶瓷最早使用在汽车尾气净化中，今天被广泛应用在众多工业领域内。蜂窝陶瓷由无数相等的孔洞组成，规则的结构形态呈现着工业产品特有的几何理性之美，这激发了我以这些废料为现成品进行艺术创作的想法。我希望通过这一系列的作品来传达“城市发展”与“自然环境”相互制约的矛盾关系。中国古人所向往的山水之境是否无情地被碾碎了呢？被污染的环境是否能被过滤和净化呢？
Artist Statement
Judging from the posture of this Buddha statue, it is the enlightened statue of Sakyamuni Buddha. Buddhism has a system of three generations of Buddhas. Three generations refer to the past, the present, and the future. Buddha Shakyamuni is the present Buddha, and is in charge of the central Saha, which is the world we live in. From the concept of time and space, all Buddhas are one and cannot be completely separated. Just as the past, present, and future have a temporal sequence, they influence each other and become one.
I chose the “Shanshui-City-the Earth” （山水-城市-尘世）series of work created in recent years to respond to the concept of time and space, reflected in the Buddhist system of this Buddha statue. This series of ceramic work was made from discarded industrial honeycomb ceramics, showing the geometric beauty presented by the unique structural form of this material. At the same time, the work glues together past and present, ideal and reality, new and old, and explores topics like city, industrialization, resources, nature and culture. The digital photo collage recaptures the whole installation as a scroll painting, and reflects the creative ideas. With social changes, we, who have lived in cities for a long time, are drifting away from nature, and “Shan Shui”（山水）has become an ideal situation that we long for and cannot be reached. Cities are constantly being changed in the course of rapid development, with new ones replacing old ones. While, everything will eventually decay into dust and become once again part of the nature.
从这尊佛像的手印看，该佛像为释迦牟尼佛成道像。佛教有三世诸佛的体系，三世指过去、现在和未来三世。释迦牟尼佛是现世佛，掌管着中央娑婆世界，也就是我们所处的这个世界。从时间空间的概念上来说，所有的佛是一体的，不能完全分开。正如过去、现在和未来虽有时间上的序列，又是彼此影响，互为一体。
我选择了近年来所创作的《山水-城市-尘世》系列作品，回应这尊佛像在佛教体系中所反映的时空观念。该系列陶艺作品以工业蜂窝陶瓷废料为创作的物质载体，展现蜂窝陶瓷特有的结构形态所呈现的理性之美，同时将过去和现在、理想和现实、新和旧拼接在一起，探索城市、工业、资源、自然、文化等命题。社会变迁，久居城市的我们离自然渐行渐远，“山水”成为渴望而不可及的理想之境。城市在快速发展中不断被更迭，新的取代旧的。然而，一切都将归于尘土，化作自然的一部分。
Selected Buddhist Object from Chiddingstone Castle
01.1612 Buddha
Buddha, seated in dhyanasana (meditation posture) on a lotus base, with his hands in bhūmisparśamudrā (touching-earth gesture), lacquered bronze. China, Ming Dynasty (16th – 17th century).
Height: 29cm
This statue depicts the Buddha Shakyamuni, the ancient prince born at the edge of the Himalayas whose teachings formed the foundations of Buddhism. Seated in the meditation posture in which he reached enlightenment, which can be described as an escape from suffering and the endless cycle of rebirth, he touches the earth to witness his achievement. The statue has a gold lacquer finish instead of being decorated in the more common style of gilding usually applied to Buddhist statues in Ming-dynasty China.
Shanshui • City • the Earth
山水-城市-尘世
Technique: reuse of discarded honeycomb ceramics
100 x 60 x 85 cm
2017
制作工艺：蜂窝陶瓷废料的再利用
作品尺寸：100 x 60 x 85 cm
2017年
The earth
尘世
Technique: Digital photo collage
Dimensions: 45 x 30 cm
2017
制作工艺：数字图像拼贴
尺寸：45 x 30 cm
2017年
Shanshui • City • the Earth
山水-城市-尘世
Technique: Digital photo collage
Dimensions: each photo size 30x120cm
2017
制作工艺：数字图像拼贴
尺寸：每幅30x120cm
2017年
