Philly's got a face: Hao Luo's ceramics at The Clay Studio feature famous portraits

"You just paint it and it's done. The firing does the rest of the work and creates unpredictable results." 

The Clay Studio

Do you think you could look into a person's soul by looking at their face? A Chinese idiom posits that we can, and it's that belief that's behind a new ceramic installation at the Clay Studio.

Chinese artist Hao Luo’s THE Face of THE City exhibition has worked a theme into this ceramic installation — the Chinese phrase “相 Xiang 由 you 心 xin 生 sheng”, which means that one’s appearance is formed through his or her internal thoughts. In other words, it is the belief that you are able to see the spirit or soul of a person simply by studying that person’s face. Luo is conveying this idea by displaying uniquely made porcelain portraits of famous faces.

The exhibition showcases Luo's unique glaze painting technique— he uses a variation of the artistic method used in china painting, where he applies glazes to ceramic pieces in different layers and then fires them in a kiln two or three times. This process reveals new textures and vibrant colors with each firing.

“It is unique to use ceramics to paint portraits. It is like china painting because you cannot change it. You just paint it and it’s done. The firing does the rest of the work and creates unpredictable results. You never know how it’s going to turn out,” says Yadan Luo, Hao’s translator and son. 

For the first two weeks of the exhibition, The Clay Studio is showing two of Luo’s ceramic works of art. One of the works, “Mr. President,” is made up of the 48 individual portraits of United States presidents, each painted on small white porcelain tiles. The tiles are displayed on a wall and organized into an 8x6 rectangle.

The second of Luo’s installations, “Famous People,” is made up of the same size porcelain tiles arranged into a slightly smaller 6x7 rectangle. Each tile is painted with the face of well-known Chinese, American and European intellectuals, artists and movie stars, like Will Smith and Jim Henson with Kermit the Frog.

Both works of art took Luo about two months to complete. Luo fires between 20-30 renditions of the same porcelain portrait before choosing the one he believes truly evokes the spirit of the individual.

Luo is part of The Clay Studio’s visiting artist program that hosts and houses international artists for a period typically lasting between one to two months and gives each artist 24-hour access to The Clay Studio and all of its resources. This year, The Clay Studio plans to host artists from Australia, China, Japan, England, Egypt and Italy.

“There is almost always an international artist here in our studio. They work on the second floor and people who are taking classes get a chance to be around them and see how they do their work,” says Jennifer Zwilling, curator of artistic programs.

On Sat., Feb. 28,  Luo will be leading a workshop to teach participants his unique glaze painting technique. The next two porcelain portraits in the exhibition, mosaics of many individual ceramic pieces, will focus on Philadelphia’s history, with portraits of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. The large scale portraits will be made of up many individual ceramic pieces that when placed together will create the faces.

Luo's exhibition runs through March 22.  

The Clay Studio will also host two five-week workshops for those interested in learning new artistic skills. “The Clay Studio Sampler” will be teaching a new artistic technique each week, including wheel throwing, hand building techniques and glazing.

The “Screen Printing on Clay” class focuses on how to coat a screen with photo emulsion by burning the screen with original artwork and then printing that image onto clay. This 5-week class will be located at Second State Press at 1400 N. American St. More information here.