Rosanna Li and Yeung Yuk Kan sculptures connected by love for ceramics

At a twist of fate, they fall in love on a blind date, Rosanna Li

Rosanna Li & Yeung Yuk Kan

Parallel Journeys in space and time at Artspace K is an exhibition of 50 ceramic sculptures by two friends, Rosanna Li and Yeung Yuk Kan, connected by a love of ceramic art.

Kingfisher II, Yeung Yuk Kan

Li Wei Han, Rosanna and Yeung Yuk Kan have been friends for over forty years. One could argue their meeting was a twist of fate.

Both grew up in Hong Kong, had a talent for drawing and were secondary school teachers.

Gentle Collision XIV, Yeung Yuk Kan

But it was not until they were young adults that they discovered each other and their shared passion for pottery.

Joint love of clay

They were both young secondary school teachers in Hong Kong who had just discovered they loved touching clay. It was during the 1980s when they frequented the Pottery Workshop at the Fringe Club in Central and regularly bumped into each other at ceramic exhibitions.

At a twist of fate, she gets her puff with no further delay, Rosanna Li

Yuk Kan had a studio and invited Rosanna to share the space, and that’s how their friendship began.

Even though they share the same medium, their art could not be more different.

Rosanna uses a coarse-grained, grogged clay known as crank to create rotund figures engaged in everyday activities.

Spanish Caravan V, Yeung Yuk Kan

Yuk Kan works in white porcelain decorated with calligraphy. This delicate, graceful material becomes abstract three-dimensional canvases for her paintings. Rosanna’s sculptures are grounded; Yuk Kan’s are spiritual.

Rosanna Li Twist of fate

Both of their creations are emotion-evoking.  

The theme of Rosanna’s series is A Twist of Fate, which aptly captures her serendipitous meeting with Yuk Kan and the writer’s block she experienced due to the unusually empty beaches during her reconnaissance trips to Repulse Bay.

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It was while preparing for this commission that she arrived at this theme.

Rosanna explained that the titles of her sculptures are as important as the work itself. During our discussion, it became apparent that the series’ name lost something in translation from Cantonese.

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It may mean luck, coincidence, or finding an agreeable thing not sought, but that changed lives.

At a twist of fate, she quits on the 1st of May, Rosanna Li

Regardless, inspiration clicked when she started imagining stories for her characters based on random, unexpected, positive twists of fate.

Whimsical themes

After that, she was “much happier” and no longer cared about the deadline, as a stream of title ideas flowed to match and inspire new figures.

At a twist of fate, the mobile turns her best mate, Rosanna Li

Rosanna’s love of art started when she was very young. She liked to draw and did a lot of it growing up.

Love of art started young

This was during the 1960s and ’70s, when her father had a small shop under a staircase at a building’s entrance. He provided photographic services for passports, weddings and funerals and in developing film.

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Rosanna helped in the family business by drying and hanging the wet photos.

In so doing, she had a candid look into other people’s lives.

At a twist of fate, they joined the market’s clearance race, Rosanna Li

She fell in love with snapshot expressions of daily life, and even today she likes to people-watch in cha chaan tengs (local places for a cheap, quick meal), on trains and wherever people go to relax.

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Yuk Kan did not come from an artistic family, but she did start drawing when she was very young — at four or five. Instead of playing with dolls or toys, she would draw.

Beyond White Clouds XII, Yeung Yuk Kan

Both artists chose clay because they loved its feel. For Rosanna, the appeal came from its plasticity and the tactile feedback from kneading, throwing, and slamming it.

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She learned she could have a dialogue with clay if she cooperated with its properties and character. Her preferred medium is crank clay, a coarse, heavily grogged clay with a lot of sand.

Clay preferred medium

She describes it as open with a lovely, easy-going temperament.

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Throwing stoneware on a wheel was Yuk Kan’s first introduction to clay.

She found it amazing, even fascinating, that you have a ball of clay in your hand, and then, after working it on a wheel, it becomes a cup, a bowl, or a plate — something beautiful that grows from your hands.

Gentle Collision XIV, Yeung Yuk Kan

Those feelings touched her, and that is how she chose this medium.

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Gradually, she migrated to more sculptural forms as she found she could better express her creativity.

Creative expression through sculpture

Over time, she started incorporating brushwork onto her ceramics.

At a twist of fate, He never catches up with his age, Rosanna Li

The change to porcelain came about because the much finer porcelain provided a smooth, neutral white background for paint.

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Rosanna’s superpower is observation. She enjoys observing the behaviours, gestures, and facial expressions of people going about their day-to-day lives.

She then tells herself made-up stories about the situations. Her father’s trade influenced this narrative approach and is where she finds inspiration.

At a twist of fate, she puts on weight, Rosanna Li

The distinctive feature of a Rosanna sculpture is the facial expression, something very important to her.

Look closely, and you will notice they are usually looking up.

Plump ladies of the Tang dynasty 

This is because she wants to have a dialogue with them while sculpting and “because they’re so small they always look up.” She commented that some people see them and say, “Oh, they’re looking at the sky. Maybe they want to make wishes.” Or that “everybody can look up and have hope.”

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Rosanna indicated these are lovely ways to interpret them.

Rosanna traces her style back to the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD), specifically the recurring plump ladies.

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She points out their beauty and that the expressions on their eyes and noses are unique to each person. 

Chinese painting and calligraphy

Yuk Kan traces her style back to her east-west experiences.

After a few years of teaching secondary school in Hong Kong, her ceramics teacher encouraged her to move to London and further her studies.

Silk Road Manuscript II, Yeung Yuk Kan

She did so, found London an epic city, and went to museums almost every weekend.

In the last ten years, she has returned to her roots, incorporating more Chinese painting and calligraphy into her work.

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When asked about her working process, Yuk Kan indicated that she does a lot of sketching to visualise the sculpted part of her work, but once she starts, she seldom refers back to them.

Instead, she reacts to the clay and the moment. At the painting stage, it is “more about the feelings at that moment, which colours to use, how does the form react to my mind? And I think I just grow into it.”

Rosanna’s sculptures are approachable

To admire Rosanna’s sculptures all one needs do is look at them.

They are approachable and are doing things with which most people can identify.

At a twist of fate, she makes good money with her terracotta clay, Rosanna Li

Her artworks are very local, and the titles frequently incorporate homonyms so loved by Cantonese speakers.

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She does wonder if her work is appreciated by people away from Hong Kong, but the welcoming cherubic faces with their small eyes and joyful innocent expressions are easily loved. 

Admiring a Yuk Kan sculpture is about emotional feelings. She finds it moving when people look at her work and then feel something unexplainable.

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“When I make a work, and I bring it to the world, they should speak for themselves, the work itself.

People don’t need to know about my story to know my work, because they should stand on their own.”

Between Voids IX, Yeung Yuk Kan

She thinks it is to look and to open your heart, to open your mind, to see what speaks to you, what the art tells you. Not everybody can make a connection.

There is also a question of taste.

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Some people like red, some like blue, and it is the same with art. What is fascinating about art is that there are so many different kinds.

Parallel Journeys of Rosanna Li & Yuk Kan Yeung

Rosanna and Yuk Kan are two very different ceramic artists — one is earthy, the other dreamy.

At a twist of fate, he finds a new faith, Rosanna Li

One offers an astute perspective on people and society; the other, a meditative reflection on human emotions.

Together, they provide a parallel journey in space and time.

Text Martin Wray / Photos Cammy Yiu

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