A collaboration between

Irene Nordli and Mingshu Li

Why do Europeans put plates on their wall?

10 March - 30 April 2022

Irene Nordli and Mingshu Li have worked together for a year. Mingshu Li has been Irene's assistant through the Norwegian Arts Council's artist assistant arrangement and in that connection, the two artists decided to create a collaboration project uniting the two artistries. The aim is to show that working with art is a good way to understand each other, even though they come from different "worlds" and generations - one established and the other newly graduated.

The intention of this project is to create a series of porcelain plates. The artists have bought, found, and received several plates in different shapes and materials. They used the plates as models to make plaster molds, to press mold new porcelain plates and to create their own variations of them. The rule has been that they both must work on the same plate, to see what happens and for the artist's ego to be challenged.

The motifs are porcelain decals and tissue papers that Irene has brought home from China combined with shapes from Irene's workshop. The plates have been glazed and fired several times and if the porcelain has cracked, they glued the pieces back together.

The title refers to the two artists’ different traditions about how they relate to a dish or a plate. In a western cultural context, the porcelain plate could be seen as so beautiful and precious that people hung it on their walls. The tradition of Christmas plates and souvenir plates illustrates this. This tradition does not exist in China. The porcelain is from China, the dishes and plates in the home are intended for everyday use and not to decorate the wall.

The exhibition is supported by Arts Council Norway.

Irene Nordli (born 1967, Oslo) lives and works in Oslo and Heestrand in Sweden. She is educated at the National Collage of Art and Design in Bergen (1995) and has been a professor at the Oslo Academy of the Arts, Department of Arts and Crafts until 2019. Nordli has had a number of solo exhibitions at institutions such as Kunstnerforbundet (2019), Ram Galleri (2018), Galleri Format (2016), Lillehammer Art Museum (2010) and Akershus Art Center (2005). Nordli has also participated in a number of group exhibitions at in Norway and abroad. In addition, Nordli has done many different Art in Public Space projects, such as Don't be a Stranger, Asker Kulturhus and Månelyst, Halden Prison (KORO). Her works have been purchased by Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim, Nasjonalmuseum for art, architecture and design, Oslo and KODE, Art Museums in Bergen, Lillehammer Art Museum, Drammen Museum, Punkt Ø, KORO, Eskilstuna Art Museum, Katrineholm Kulturhus, Sweden , Hamburg museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Germany.

Mingshu Li (1994), is an emerging ceramic artist based in Oslo who went on to obtain a Masters in Medium and Material Based Art at the Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo in 2020. She has participated in exhibitions for the past four years both nationally and internationally. Her works are collected by the city of El Vendrell as a part of the Municipal Art Collection in Spain, and KODE Art Museums in Bergen, Norway. Mingshu Li is highly inspired by the environment around her and represents this in her works. She has been exploring non-traditional ways of using clay for making sculptures, understanding how clay can be utilized as a medium to make sense of who she is and where she lives.