What a Plate Can Hold

Clay+ has filled its ground-floor room on Chaozhou Street with plates. For 《盛放》 (On the plate), nine artists began with the plate's shallow shape, rim, center and ordinary job of receiving something. The works retain some of those features and discard others.

Huang Hsiao-ju's square vessel is assembled from small pieces of white, gray and pink-beige clay. Each square was pinched and joined by hand. The grid is regular enough to register immediately, but its edges and intervals keep changing.

Liu Chen-Chou takes the plate off the table. Five black plates and one white plate hang together in two rows, crossed by raised seams and fine lines. Their shallow depth remains visible, especially along their uneven edges, but the arrangement also works as a group of small wall sculptures. One black plate seen alone is quieter: a matte field, a slight curve and a line that rises just above the surface.

Liu Yi-Tang's 變塗 technique carries blue, rust, ochre, green and pink across a low oval plate. There is no central picture sitting on top of the vessel. The changes in color and texture belong to the plate itself.

Wei-yin uses a round vessel as the ground for a yellow, orange and pink cartoon face held together by dark glazed outlines. Clay+ describes her practice as moving between painting and sculpture; here the image follows the vessel rather than sitting inside a separate frame.

Lin Yi-Hui changes the plate's center completely. Her ceramic ring is modeled with green leaves, small orange flowers and a bird-like mark around a mirror. The mirror receives the room, the viewer and whatever passes through its reflection.

Gen Hoshino's pale celadon plates are made for repeated use. Their surfaces rise into long folded ridges that follow the plate's shape while interrupting its flatness. Clay+ installs them on black tables beside a window.

These works are available to collect. Buying one supports the artist and lets the object enter daily life, where it can be touched, used and seen again over breakfast.

《盛放》 closes Saturday, September 5. There are three regular afternoons left to see it.