Renee So (Provenance)

Renee So’ s idiosyncratic practice in ceramics and textiles, and occasionally furniture and glass, is inspired by art history, collections in museums and gendered symbolism. Her work is distinguished by its embrace of craft methods and cross-cultural thinking, an underlying sense of the comedic and a persistent feminist worldview. Produced to accompany a major 2023 survey exhibition at Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Renee So: Provenance showcases more than a decade of the artist’ s work alongside new commissioned essays by writers Hé lè ne Maloigne and Chus Martí nez and a conversation between So and exhibition curator Charlotte Day. Designed by London studio A Practice for Everyday Life, it features illustrations of the diverse art historical influences that inspire So’ s works – from the earliest known ceramics to objects looted from Yuanmingyuan (the Qing Dynasty Old Summer Palace) by the British and French in the mid nineteenth century.