Disembodied Identities

SEPTEMBER 27 – DECEMBER 10, 2021

Somerville-based artist, Jessica Lau, explores the relationship between personal and social identity. Taking inspiration from her experiences as a second-generation Chinese American woman, Lau transforms them into disembodied and provocative sculptures. With roots in production pottery and figurative sculpture, Lau references the vessel and the body as a conceptual representation of internal and external forms, investigating how different shapes can inform our conceptions of the body and its relationship to cultural and gendered identities.

Clay is a transformative material able to mimic pursed lips, draping fabric, furniture, or skin. Lau delights in the mutability of this material, skillfully manipulating it to evoke images of reproduction and part of the body. She also incorporates familiar items in her sculptures, such as clothing, industrial building materials, beads, crystals, and both human and synthetic hair. Each sculpture – a portrait of moments of pleasure and pain that accompanies dynamic points in the cycle of life – offers new forms and languages to examine the fragility of the human condition and her desire to reinvent it.