Renqian Yang is a Chinese-born, US-based ceramic artist whose practice moves between two cultural landscapes. For her, clay is not simply a material for shaping form. It is a medium for capturing subtle emotional states, fleeting sensations, and the fragile shifts that exist between stability and collapse, closeness and distance.

Her process involves stacking, pressing, folding, tearing, and allowing clay to fall into moments of imbalance. Surfaces rise, crack, buckle, and unfold as if recording a psychological rhythm. Rather than forcing a final silhouette, Yang often leaves the work in a state of becoming. The form holds its tension, as though it has paused in the middle of transformation.

This embrace of the unfinished is deeply connected to the Daoist view of change. Nothing remains fixed. Emotion, identity, and memory are always moving. Clay simply offers a temporary vessel in which these shifting states can take form. Soft matter becomes weight through fire, much like a passing emotion becoming a trace one can touch.

Her work has received international recognition and was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2024. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Ceramics at the State University of New York at Oswego.

In the philosophy of the Five Elements, earth represents holding, transforming, and generating. Yang’s sculptures embody these qualities. They turn soft emotion into grounded physical presence, offering viewers a place to rest between vulnerability and strength.

SOTACA on Renqian Yang
In Renqian Yang’s work, clay is not a medium but a sensory terrain. Each fold, edge, and rupture carries traces of emotion and time.
Her sculptures sit between emergence and collapse, allowing the viewer to sense the moment before form settles.
What appears fragile is often the source of the work’s quiet power.

SOTACA Pairing Note
Renqian Yang’s ceramic sculptures integrate seamlessly into minimalist, contemporary, wabi-sabi, and naturalistic interiors. Their matte surfaces and organic contours resonate beautifully with neutral walls, raw wood, fine stone, and linen textures.

Placed on a mantel, console, niche, or pedestal, her works become a subtle focal point that elevates the emotional atmosphere of a space without overwhelming it. The pieces bring softness, depth, and a quiet sense of movement, enriching both residential and gallery environments.