Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do？

I’m a sculptor based in Chicago, originally from China. I work primarily with wood, clay, and hybrid materials. My practice grew out of a sense of suspended belonging — moving across borders, inhabiting unfamiliar landscapes, and living in a state of continual displacement. From this experience, I developed what I call a speculative ancestry: a lineage shaped not by blood, but by emotional resonance and imagined memory. My sculptures emerge from this suspended condition. They drift between body and vessel, relic and future fossil. I think of my works as vessels for instability. They suggest recognition without ever fully arriving, inviting a kind of displaced intimacy between object and viewer.

How do you consider materiality in your process?

For me, materiality is never just physical. It is emotional, temporal, and ancestral. I approach materials as living archives. Each carries a memory beyond language: clay formed over thousands of years beneath the earth, and wood marked by its own growth.  I enter into a dialogue with it when I excavate through carving, and respond through sculpting. Sometimes it yields, sometimes it resists. That tension is important to me. I think materiality is a deeper, layered memory held within the earth, the body, and time. When I interact with my materials, I feel as though I am working with time or mimicking the gesture of time in nature. In that sense, materiality also becomes a witness to loss and remains. 

What do you think is a new issue arising in the arts and how do you deal with it personally?

I’ve noticed a collective hunger for grounding, but also a deep mistrust in fixed narratives. I often feel my body being pulled toward certain expectations of identity as if I owe clarity to a history that itself is fragmented. For me personally, I deal with this issue by leaning into the instability and trying to capture moments of fluidity instead of grounding into a certain narrative. My work resists resolution and leans toward ambiguity. I’m not trying to illustrate identity, but trying to build structures of sensation and space where something unspoken can stay.

How do you see your work evolving in parallel to things that are going on around you right now?

I feel that recently I’m much more attuned to a sense of fluidity within myself and in the world around me. This shift is now intuitively reflected in my recent work. It feels less about holding something stable, but more about tracing the movement of becoming and learning to exist within motion. I think it also reflects the sense of living in flux and inhabiting a space where things are continuously forming and dissolving, which makes the boundary between presence and absence ambiguous.

Is there any source material you find extremely relevant to your practice right now?

Recently I’ve been into Carl Jung’s idea of hidden memory—the notion that certain memories are buried so deeply that we no longer consciously recall them, yet they resurface in symbolic or sensory ways. This resonates with how I approach form: as something that might carry emotional or ancestral memory, even if its origin is unknown. That makes me look into natural forms like fossils and rocks—things shaped by time and seal time. They feel like physical manifestations of forgotten histories, and offer a language for sculpting absence, longing, or emotional remnants.  

Tell me about your relationship with Chicago. Does the city itself influence your work at all?

Chicago has given me a lot of space to think and build my practice. I appreciate that even though the city is large and sometimes feels quiet, it never made me feel lonely. There’s a sense of openness and an ease in connecting with people. I also appreciate the commute. I love driving. I drive about forty minutes to my studio every day, and this has become an important part of my process — a moving space where I can reflect and let ideas surface. I also want to shout out to my friends who have been giving me support.

How do you source your materials? Is their specificity important to the work?

I got my lumber from local lumber shops and I mix the clay in my studio. I’ve been using the same kind of claybody that I developed by myself. 

Do your sculptures arrive through careful conceptualization or natural improvisation?

My sculptures begin with a clear vision, often a shape I’ve already generated in my mind. I usually have the core structure planned before putting my hand into it. But once I begin, I stay attentive to the material’s feedback. I allow small shifts to happen through the process and adjust accordingly. So while the work is not improvised, it is responsive.

How do you consider space and architecture when exhibiting work? Do you consider it prior as well?

I don’t think of space as something fixed that my sculptures must adapt to. I hope my sculptures can continue to grow, extend, and reconfigure themselves in different settings. I don’t design the sculptures to fit a pre-imagined space; instead, I let them encounter the architecture and find their own way of inhabiting it. 

Do you think your work takes on different contexts when shown in different environments?

Yes, I believe my work naturally absorbs and reflects the context of the environment it inhabits. They are sensitive, porous beings that listen to their surroundings. I think of them as my own bodies moving through different landscapes

What was the last show you saw that stuck out to you?

To this day, I still think about Guillermo Kuitca’s painting show I saw in Los Angeles in 2019.

Do you think collaboration is important and/or inherent to being an artist?

I think collaboration isn’t always at the center of my making because I work alone most of the time. But collaboration becomes important in different settings, like when installing an exhibition, working with curators, or thinking about how the work enters a space with audiences. In that sense, the life of a work is inherently collaborative.

How do you form a relationship with an object?

I’m always drawn to objects that carry their own history. I love collecting mineral specimens, as well as different kinds of ferns. I often catch myself looking at them and touching them, losing any sense of time, fascinated by the complexity of their forms. I believe they hold a certain energy, and I try to connect with it. It’s a relationship built on care, curiosity, and recognition—recognizing that they hold their own existence, one that began long before me and will continue beyond me.

What artists do you think are making important work right now?

Liao Wen’s work has stayed with me, especially in how she works with wood. She is an artist based in Hong Kong. Her wood sculptures had a strong impact on how I think about my relationship with the material. I was deeply struck by the sense of stillness and the expressive tension her works hold. Seeing her approach made me more aware of the tempo of my own making. I now work much more carefully, more conscious of how speed shapes the energy of a piece.

Can you tell us a memory of someone interacting with your work that frequently crosses your mind?

I remember giving a friend a small wooden tear I carved. I had polished it completely smooth and I noticed that my friend kept rubbing it in their hands without even noticing. It made me realize that people are often drawn to touch my work, especially the wooden pieces I’ve made recently. I think it has something to do with the fleshy, warm quality of wood. I think about these moments when people build their relationship with my work, and it makes me want to create sculptures in the future that are meant to be touched and held.

 

 

Interview conducted and edited by Liam Owings