“I embrace a certain imperfection”: Chen Hsian-Jung’s glazed tiles show us the infinite possibilities of ceramics

We couldn’t imagine walking over Chen Hsian-Jung’s tiles. A sight to behold, he endows these everyday items with enticing colourways that make them look like portals. He first encountered ceramics while studying for his master’s in creative and cultural entrepreneurship in London, where he embarked on a year-long journey of workshops at Hackney City Farm. Returning to his hometown in Taiwan over a decade ago, the artist has since been enthralled in a process of “self-directed learning,” he tells us, and participating in exhibitions showcasing he meticulous craft.

In August 2023, Hsian-Jung was part of the group exhibition Unruly Clay 2.0 held at Back_Y in Neihu, Taipei in northern Taiwan, where he showcased a plethora of striped architectural structures. During the show, the curators Chen Yi-Chiu and Yen Yu-Ting asked participating artists to respond to the distinctive characteristics of the exhibition space. “The space exudes a raw, unfinished ambiance, featuring cement walls, pillars, and an absence of partitions,” Hsian-Jung tells us. And, he felt a calling to create tiles in response, because of their significance in traditional Taiwanese architecture. “A common progression in a semi-finished house involves the installation of tiles. They represent a kind of industrial application of ceramics,” he adds, birthing the beginning of Tile Project.

The project started with Hsian-Jung searching for suitable tiles and testing how they’d take to the glazing. Then, he began mixing his own coloured glazes before designing the pattern for each tile in his notebook. “Because each tile has different gradient combinations and colour stacking, I had to plan the most efficient glazing sequence in advance,” he tells us. Working on ten tiles at once – “just enough to fill my kiln” – he fired them up using an oxidation process at around 1000 degrees to “allow the coloured glazes to meld with the original white glaze on the tiles”. A way away from his past process of creating entirely by hand, as of late, Hsian-Jung has been implementing the use of moulds and semi-finished products. Initially thinking that this change would be time-saving, he soon found himself investing effort in other areas such as communication and troubleshooting. “This is what makes me reconsider how we value ceramics. Now I try to integrate various possible approaches in my creative process. It’s often at this intersection of approaches that new possibilities emerge,” he adds.

For Hsian-Jung, the greatest challenge is in crafting a diverse range of colour combinations and compositions, while working with a limited glaze palette. “I often had to wipe away the glaze due to some mistakes, start anew or make impromptu adjustments,” he shares. With hopes to further develop Tile Project and eventually build large-scale installations in both residential and commercial spaces, he endeavours to continue toeing the line between between ceramics as art and industrial details. “I embrace a certain imperfection, which is the most intriguing aspect – the glaze candidly recording the thoughts and states of creation in every single tile.”