Exhibition Review: Michele Quan, GARLANDS By Jessica Wadsworth

Michele Quan's extraordinary GARLANDS installation at the ON
MAIN Gallery in Vancouver May 28 to July 11 couldn't help but
surprise the viewer who expects to find yet another carefully-displayed
ceramics exhibit inside a gallery. At first glance, you know something
is different. Quan’s hand-made version of Buddhist prayer flags adorns
the exterior of the building, brightening the dull block of Main Street
where ON MAIN is located. A mixed-media drawing of a tree bearing
a “garland” hangs in the foyer. Skulls and moons hang from hemp
rope in the gallery's doorway and upon entering the exhibition one
sees over-sized stoneware needles beside an enormous ceramic key.
A bright pink bull's eye is painted on a white wall and a shelf lined
with hand-drawn ceramic skulls is reflected in an adjacent mirror. The
exhibit is bold, striking and colourful but the gallery is serene in the
presence of these amazing objects.

As the gallery press release made clear, in GARLANDS “the principle
pieces are intended as indoor architectural elements or outdoor garden
sculptures.” The garlands are all large-scale pieces, over ten feet in
length, comprising several ceramic beads richly textured and finished
by hand. Strung in the windows of the ON MAIN space they were
visible from the street and lit at night throughout the duration of the
installation to allow their presence to be felt by those who passed by.
Viewers who ventured inside the gallery could walk around and in
between the garlands in order to read and contemplate each and every
bead. As an installation, viewers could contemplate the works as a
whole and make connections between the different thematics of each
piece.

Drawing on motifs from Buddhist and Hindu traditions, Quan
explores the historical and contemporary modalities of ceramic objects
as migrating cultural vessels. Her surfaces are as much history and
culture as they are autobiography. Personal diary entries; a written
dialogue between her and her daughter and drawings of her loved ones
decorate her ceramic surfaces and situate Quan's own life experiences
within the sacred and meaningful. Quan's website kindly offers several
photographs of her process, each ceramic bead its own story, woven
together with hemp rope into a garland, resembling Buddhist prayer
beads used to count mantras while meditating. The attention to
detail is astounding, the sheer number of beads and other hand-made
pieces remarkable. Quan's works reveal a contemplative process with
reverence for the steps and stages far from the finished product.

Laden with these images of Buddhist iconography, personal
narrative, memory and an overwhelming sense of the artists’ labour
and attention to detail, each object is both as much a work of art as
an autonomous object. Each is also an object that functions within

the gallery space, drawing meaning from its relationship to the body
of work as a whole and the architecture of the room. GARLANDS
seems to be able to comprehend a multiplicity of distinct elements—
places, spaces, the real and the imaginary, emotion, documentation,
the natural world, Buddhist narratives that bridge the past with the
present—it is a rich experience as one moves in and around the works.
GARLANDS also blurs the lines between art and craft traditions, at
once rooted in the memory of objects that function as part of Buddhist
and Hindu cultural traditions, but also allowing the objects to detach
from traditional narratives and function in alternate environments as
an installation.

Alternately, the website offers photographs of these garlands situated
in trees, as is also intended by the artist. Quan writes: "The tree is my
muse. I make garlands to be hung in her branches in offering to the
earth, the community and the self. My hope is that they serve as objects
of contemplation to inspire reverence and as a source of encouragement
and refuge.” Situated in trees, the garlands take on other meanings and
associations that cannot be experienced in the gallery. Quan writes: "...
Clay is earth—a tactile material that is transformed by fire. The rope
is the thread of time representing the connection and interdependence
of all beings and phenomena. The fabric catches what can be felt
and yet is invisible to the eye. Wind breathes life into the piece and
registers the presence of energy.” It is clear that a gallery installation is
only one of the intended sites for her works, but both environments
offer something for the viewer to contemplate. GARLANDS explores
the boundaries of form and content, both within each ceramic piece,
and as an entire installation situated in the art tradition of displaying
objects in a gallery setting.

‘The experience of GARLANDS at On Main is one of incredible
artistry and vision. Michele Quan’s offering of personal and cultural
memory an astute recognition of the relationship between public and
personal, past and present. Curators Donna Partridge and Paul Wong
have succeeded in bringing a ceramics and mixed-media installation
into an environment unfamiliar with the ceramics craft and have done
so to the delight of an audience that may never have seen the diversity
and multiplicity of the form.

For more information on Michele Quan visit www.mquan.com

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter - September 2009 10

COLUMBIA