![Exhibition: The Mill Showcase, Alice Hu, 柔韧的骨头 [Annealed Bone]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55f0e22be4b0a011810ccb45/1699494022500-5S1GOXJS7K5FHF896BH4/Instagram+Post+%282%29.png)
Image: Courtesy of the artist
December 8, 2023 - January 19, 2024
Exhibition opening: Thursday, December 7, 5-7pm
The Exhibition Space, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta
Free entry, all welcome
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You can find Hamish and Juliane’s work in The Mill Showcase Space, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
The Exhibition Space is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
The Mill is excited to present 柔韧的骨头 [Annealed Bone], a new Showcase exhibition by previous studio resident Alice Hu. The exhibition features new work in ceramic, glass and metal, some of which have been developed by Alice while she undertook the George Street Studio Residency, supported by Helpmann Academy.
Alice’s multi-disciplinary practice is conceptually and materially rich, exploring themes of immigration, acculturation and complex understandings of self. Sculptural works offer the comfort of familiar materials, smooth ceramic and glistening glass. However, Alice reframes materiality through sometimes strange assemblages, de-and-re-constructions, and a complex aesthetic unique to her practice.
The Mill Showcase is a gallery space dedicated to artists who work in studio spaces at our Angas Street location, exhibiting some of the artworks that have been produced under our roof. The Mill Showcase profiles our artists, so that you can put a face to the name and get to know some of our dedicated makers.
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Alice Hu is an emerging artist with an Honours of Contemporary Art and Design, living and working on Kaurna Land, Adelaide. They work across mediums including ceramics, glass, painting, tattooing, and installation, drawing from lived experiences to explore concepts of multiculturalism, equality, freedom, life and nature. Her current practice is deeply influenced by her unique background and cultural art-form.
The use of ceramics stems from an interest in philosophy, childhood stories and mythologies. Alice aims to create art forms with multicultural aesthetics to promote the beauty and necessity of a diverse society while investigating how different cultures interact. Alice has participated in multiple art programs, over-sea experience and workshop across USA, Italy, New Zealand, Japan and China, and have been apart of exhibitions in Adelaide including Bridge (The Main Gallery, 2021), Kaleidoscope (Praxis Art Space, 2021), Pendulum (Nexus Arts, 2022), VASL (Kerry Packer Civic Gallery, 2023) and currently has a studio residency at George Street Studio and was a studio artist at The Mill.
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In my exhibition at The Mill, recycled metal and broken ceramics have found their second life together. The two distinctly different mediums has a strong character on their own and tells its unique story being together that forms a life and journey. The work has been welded, and the material have been carefully arranged to create an interesting and unique aesthetic. The different shapes, textures and colours of the ceramic and metal pieces interact with each other to create a dialogue between the two materials. The combination of the two materials creates a dynamic composition that is both visually appealing and emotionally evocative, it is very inspiring and a sentimental moment to see your broken, once shattered work to be alive again.
Through the George street residency I sought to learn more skills that can help me define my concepts and to build artworks that can express my story. For my recent group exhibition, ‘Pendulum’ in Nexus Arts Gallery, I was supported by the Helpmann Academy’s Creative Boost Grant, and created several large ceramic works. As I worked on large ceramic sculptures, over 1 metre in height, I experienced lots of technical issues. It was not only a difficult process to make such large works, but I also encountered a number of problems during the drying and firing processes. One of the most unexpected, but ultimately fortuitous, outcomes was that the two large works exploded in the kiln during the firing process. It was a shocked like no other when I opened the kiln, but I then came to understand the resemblance between the broken work and my immigration experience, the world fell apart on me when I found out I had to move and leave everything I used to know behind. It was devastating, but yet an inseparable part of my life and my experience. The ceramic works were represented in the exhibition at Nexus as shattered pieces, and this process of breaking, rethinking, and “reassembling” became essential to actually ‘finishing’ the work.
As I continue to develop as an artist and a person with a multicultural background, I have learnt more about the cultural history of both countries I have called home throughout my life, China and Australia. I realised how my unique aesthetics built from my multicultural background is at the core of my practice. As much as I loved this broken work and its strong impact on me, I need to further develop this concept.
I have re-constructed myself and build works with my complex aesthetics, by combining these seemly irrelevent materials. As much as the shattering and breaking is what made this installation meaningful, it was essential for me to learn how to bring the pieces back together. I created this standing work, which acknowledges that while the pieces are still broken, they have been reassembled in reference to the re-construction of an identity after traumatizing experience or damage.
These works were created mainly with the support from my George Street Studios Residency (through Helpmann Academy )
