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Flickr photostream - Ah Xian

Ah Xian - Biography

Ah Xian is a Chinese-Australian contemporary artist interested in the human body and how contemporary craft can make it meaningful. Ah Xian uses many different techniques and materials, based on ancient Chinese crafts skills, including porcelain, cloisonne, lacquer, jade, ox-bone inlay and bronze as well as concrete. His most recent work is a new body of bronze casts. Craft Australia asked Ah Xian about sustainability both in his contemporary art practice and for traditional Chinese craftsmanship as well as about the themes of urban displacement and cultural remembrance in his works. Read more here.

Kathryn Wells - Craft Australia

The Face - Ah Xian (The Australian)

Ah Xian - ACMI

Ah Xian - Australian Edge

Ah Xian is a contemporary artist born in Beijjing, and now lives and works in Sydney. He was recently the recipient of the 2009 Clemenger Contemporary Art Award for his work entitledConcrete forest.

“Ah Xian, was born in Beijing, China, in 1960 and arrived in Australia along with his brother Liu Xiao Xian in 1990 shortly after the trauma of Tiananmen Square. His artistic practice has always focussed on a personal exploration of cultural and spiritual identity that he translates through the creation and decoration of sculptural busts and human forms. Ah Xian uses millenia-old Chinese art materials and techniques; jade, porcelain, lacquerware, cloisonne and bronze to form the base of his symbolically decorated works of art that address the artistic language and values of both East and West.”

More of his work can be seen on Flickr here.

Source: Australian Edge

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