Jolie Ngo

I am revitalizing the metaphoric potential of the vessel form by utilizing technologies of clay 3D printing and rapid prototyping, to create bright cyborgian pottery objects that acknowledge early ceramic traditions while smiling towards the future. Working with tools that are digitally forward, I am deeply engaged in exploring the tension between past and future, probing the synergy between handmade arts and technology. Maintaining a sense of tactility, intimacy and sensitivity often achieved in traditional handworks is paramount to my practice. I lovingly dress these familiar forms with hand painted geometric patterns or hazy gradients and affix embellishments all over their surface to bring my hand back into the process. This interplay of the machine and my hands results in creation of objects that resist definition. I am creating work that challenges our perception of what it means to craft an object. There is an assumed conflict between the hand and the machine, both having their own benefits and drawbacks. Does removing the hand and replacing it with a machine separate the maker from the work and deny the piece the emotive content of their touch? Is it possible to create a sense of intimacy and tactility with a machine? Are those objects doomed to the tight and refined aesthetics that come with mechanical production? Is the maker’s touch actually removed when digitally crafting? My body of work has developed by challenging these ideas around the handmade and digital craft. I am embracing that space where they meet. In that space, I am able to build a world that is holistic and complex with objects that dislodge themselves from expectation.
 My vessels are future-forms that are designed to hold ideas or memories of the past. Influenced by the aesthetics of the earliest digital spaces I inhabited and the nostalgia I feel for those virtual worlds conditioned me to become a “world builder”. This concept is reflected in the microcosms constructed within the vessels as they stand in for the scale models of imaginary architecture, maquettes for future furniture, rolling strata of rice terraces and landscape paintings.
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Lantern Vessel in Aerial View

$5500.00



Shadow Vessel

$4800.00



Lantern Vessel in Multiple Tabs Open

$5500.00


 

Lantern Vessel in Aerial View

$5500.00



Shadow Vessel

$4800.00



Lantern Vessel in Multiple Tabs Open

$5500.00



Lantern Vessel in Aerial View

$5500.00



Shadow Vessel

$4800.00



Lantern Vessel in Multiple Tabs Open

$5500.00


 

Lantern Vessel in Aerial View

$5500.00



Shadow Vessel

$4800.00



Lantern Vessel in Multiple Tabs Open

$5500.00




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