Local hand-painted ceramic mug by artist Renqian Yang.

Approximately 3.5 inches tall and 4 inches wide.

Renqian Yang (b.1987, Xiangtan, Hunan Province, China) earned her B.F.A. in Ceramics from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing in 2009 and her M.F.A. in Ceramics from Syracuse University in 2014. Currently, she lives and works in Oswego, New York as an artist and Assistant Professor at the State University of New York at Oswego. Yang’s work has continued to exhibit in the U.S. and China. Her recent exhibitions include: Renqian Yang: Construct Deconstruction, Taoxichuan Ceramic Art Avenue Art Gallery, Jingdezhen, China (2018); Renqian Yang: Complementary Colors, Fou Gallery, New York (2016). She served as a residency artist at Craigardan (2018), Jindezhen International Studio (2018), and the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts (2017).

Yang is interested in the concept of binaries. Her work addresses the unity and the contradiction of dichotomies: restriction and freedom, pessimism and optimism, complexity and simplicity, representation and abstraction, the man-made world and the natural world. At the same time, her work explores how the individual is related to nature, society, and oneself. Yang combines both traditional and nontraditional methods in her practices. While primarily focused on ceramics, her work also extends to installation, sculpture, drawing, painting, and functional everyday objects