Art in the Community Presents Kaie Fu: Living by the Mountains and the Sea

Kaie Fu, Duck on the Sea, (2023), detail of ceramic, 31.4 cm x 15.3 cm x 23 cm. Image courtesy of Nicolas de Vooght.

Artist Feature:

Kaie Fu is a ceramic artist that currently lives in North Vancouver. Fu was born in 1979 on Hainan Island in Southern China. In 2002, she travelled from her hometown to Jingdezhen, a city named the “Home of Porcelain” to learn traditional ceramic painting from Huang Fei, who she later married. They became ceramic studio partners and independent artists together.

In 2020, she moved to Canada because of her husband Huang Fei’s car accident in Canada. The year of her move here, coincided with the global pandemic lockdown, which separated her for two years from her son in China. This time brought with it lots of tears and heartbreaking moments for everyone. Watching the sea and water birds and ducks helped to heal her mind and heart.

Since 2022, she began to learn hand-building and sculpture with her mentor Louisa Leibmen at the Pottery Studio at the Delbrook Community Recreation Center. She uses slab building, hollow carving, underglaze colour painting, and different colour glazes in her ceramic steles. Steles are a type of monument, usually of a stone slab, originally used in ancient history to mark the passing of time. The artist translates her memories of finding peace and healing from pain by spending time in nature in her artwork.

Instagram: @KaieFu