Qi Fang Colbert is an active artist, ceramist illustrator, art tutor and independent researcher working between art practice and academic research. Qi was trained to be a practice- led PhD in Fine Art at Newcastle University, UK, after her her MA and BA of Visual Design at Jiangnan University, China.

 

Fine Art

Qi’s contemporary works encompass various mediums including drawing, illustration, animation, pottery and video installations, with a focus on exploring the development and the transforming identities, misplaced individuals, experience of place in dramatic social changes and cultural dislocations globally and locally. Qi attempts to bridge the unknown, fear and surreal of the new with the realities of a rapidly developing globalisation, cultures and communities by constructing conversations via space and image, with which she invites her audiences to challenge and explore the conventional definitions of self, memories, identity, and the human nature.

 

Major works are exhibited internationally and nationally in Edinburgh, Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nottingham, Sheffield, Ashington, UK and Beijing, Shenzhen, Wuxi, Ningxia, China. Major installation exhibition includes By No Definition (2015), Northern Landscapes: Picture Poems (2016), The Outsiders (2017) at Newcastle University (Gosforth Civic Theatre, 2017) and The Reversible Future (2016) at Abject Gallery, Breeze Creatives, and The Temporary Entrance, DSFA (2021), accompanied by publishes in Art Review Magazine Issue 50, 2019, Speech The Meanings of Transformation, Beijing University of Agriculture, 2019, The Urgency of Art, Royal College of Art (2019), ‘The Power and Influence of Illustration’ (Alan Male, 2018), Evolving Fields - Sensorially, Imagination and Memory in the Humanities Experience, Queen’s University Belfast (2017) and etc.

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Ceramic:

As part of her PhD in Fine Art and Art History, Qi explored the transformation between 2D and 3D narrative pictures in video installation, which later informed her passion to combine original drawings with ceramics.

Based in Northumberland, Qi is an internationally awarded and exhibited artist, ceramicist, illustrator and researcher, as well as a creative and innovative ceramist creating original surrealist narrative works. As part of her PhD in Fine Art and Art History, Qi explored the transformation between 2D and 3D narrative pictures in video installation, which later informed her passion to combine original drawings with ceramics. She is a member of Northern Potters Association and associate member of Craft Potters Association.

 

Qi works primarily with hand-built and thrown high-fire (1220°C) white stoneware with free-hand carved and inlaid original designs. The illustrated works celebrate different carving techniques (Huahua technique in Chinese, or Mishima, and sgraffito) on ceramics and are decorated using decorative slips and underglazes.

 

The works range from Fine Art collectable narrative slab-built stoneware pots (The Whatever Vases), decorative food-safe functional items such as bowls, mugs and jugs to decorative pieces of jewellery, badges, wall hangings and sculptures. The price ranges from £15 to £ 600.

 

Qi’s ceramics search for conversations and mutual encouragement between the object and her drawings/paintings are deeply inspired by Automatic Drawing, Surrealism and Oriental classical painting. The works are known for their quirky, playful and symbolic narrative representation of the transforming identity, human-nature interactions, feminism, and cultural boundaries.

 

Rather than following a well-planed blueprint, Qi free hand carves the organic shapes she builds, to lets the shape of the clay and drawing determine the composition. Like a spreading vine, her expressive pictures find ways to shape the object, forming the outlines and content, vice versa, to capture the flow of consciousness, stories and emotions. Instead of searching for uniformity and certainty, her ceramics call for a curiosity of the unknown, abnormal and asymmetrical. They call for open interpretations and audience engagement with the circular narrative images via the touch of hands and inquisitive eyes.

 

Qi’s ceramic works have recently been exhibited in fairs Only Clay 2024, Art In the Pen, Alnmouth Arts Festival 2024, Hepworth Wakefield Ceramic Fair 2024, Potfest Scone Palace 2024, Potfest in the Pen (Penrith, spring) 2023,2024, Artisan Made UK 2024, York Ceramic Fair 2024, Endless Love Makers Market 2023, 2024 (Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art), Made. Up. North (NCL) 2023, Craft in the Pen (Skipton) 2024, Living North Winter Fair (NCL) 2024, The Marley Fairs (Tyne & Wear) 2023, Woodhorn Museum (Ashington) 2023, Baltic Gallery Art Boot Fair 2023, 2024.

 

Qi’s works are represented by galleries including Water Street Gallery, Cupola Gallery (Sheffield) 2022-2023, Heart Gallery, Hancock Gallery, Bright Water Gallery, Number One Kirkharle, Pole Star Gallery, etc.

 

Upcoming events include Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair 2024, Craft in the Pens, Endless Love Makers Xmas Market 2024, 2D3D Event, Kendal Craft Fair, York Ceramic Fair 2025 and etc.