Adam Chau

Artist Biography:
Adam Chau is rising artist working in New York. His current body of work integrates digital manufacturing with traditional studio ceramics. His research has been published in many publications about ceramics. In 2018 he was awarded the NCECA Emerging Artist Award; in 2019 he was accepted into the International Academy of Ceramics and is a 2021 keynote speaker for the biennial conference. Solo exhibitions include Ceramic Program of Harvard University (Boston), Manchester Craftsmen's Guild (Pittsburgh), The Clay Studio (Philadelphia), and Taoxichuan (China). In 2017 Adam curated Reinvented, an exhibit featuring 13 international artists that created ceramics digitally, which travelled the US to five locations for two years.

Creative Concept:

My work looks at ways in which we navigate digital culture as well as objects made by digital manufacturing. I use a robotic arm to paint onto porcelain tiles, replacing a human hand, to critique our evolving relationship with industrialized object making. The images that I create are reflections on "selfie" culture where I have noticed the use of the smartphone as a prop to obliterate the face – it is almost unimaginable before this phenomenon to produce an anonymous self-portrait. My tiles reference both smartphones, pixels, and traditional mosaics; it is curious to read both smartphones and tiles as 2D and 3D at the same time and I am interested in this parallel.