South China Sea

Contextual Statement

Material, place, and transformation

The South China Sea Series emerged from Martie’s Hong Kong seacoast work and from years of collecting pottery fragments washed ashore along the South China Sea. Rather than using these shards merely as decoration, she incorporates earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain fragments into new sculptures so that the work becomes self-referential: actual fragments of historical “china” participate in the making of new ceramic “china.” The shards carry evidence of trade, domestic use, breakage, weather, and movement through water. In works such as Waterspout Vessel, found ceramic fragments, beach glass, shells, and other materials are gathered into dense seascape-like structures. The series connects coastal terrain with China’s long ceramic history while also considering circulation, loss, recovery, and the transformation of discarded material into renewed cultural memory.