Wednesday, June 24, 2026
12 — 1 pm | Members’ Council Gallery
Pay-What-You-Wish Admission
Join CNY Artist Initiative featured artist Renqian Yang for a gallery talk to learn more about her work and special exhibition, Renqian Yang: Neither Here nor Elsewhere. Light refreshments to follow.
About the Exhibition:
Throughout her career, Renqian Yang has consistently embraced duality. It is unsurprising that her favored material is porcelain, whose dual properties are fragility and permanence. Porcelain’s uses range from industrial materials like insulators and laboratory ware to Ming vases and Meissen figurines. Porcelain begins as earth but, after firing, evokes transcendence. Despite its solidity, porcelain is translucent when held up to the light. Porcelain has beguiled and seduced artists and collectors for centuries.
Working in China, Yang has traced porcelain’s origins to its invention there more than 1300 years ago. Her Chinese porcelains reflect the angular shapes of China’s vibrant urban cityscapes but also contain organic elements that evoke human emotion. Imagery drawn from 20th century commercial prints mingle with deeply spiritual classical brush painting. In many of Yang’s works, pure white porcelain stands in stark contrast to vibrant colors.
Neither Here nor Elsewhere features works Yang made in her home studio in Oswego and during residencies in China and North Carolina, all deeply rooted in place while simultaneously reflecting porcelain’s ubiquity and universality. Yang makes porcelain a vehicle for inquiry, reflection, and self-expression. She brings together organic and constructed forms, personal experience and collective histories, her work exploring how emotions persist, transform, and connect humanity across time, place, and culture.
Renqian Yang
Interconnection I (detail), 2023
Colored porcelain with underglaze and glaze, 9½ x 8½ x 9 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Renqian Yang: Neither Here nor Elsewhere is part of the Everson CNY Artist Initiative, an exhibition program that celebrates the multi-faceted talents of regional artists. The CNY Artist Initiative is made possible with support from Sandra Hurd and Joel Potash.
The Everson is supported by the General Operating Support program, a regrant program of the County of Onondaga with the support of County Executive, J. Ryan McMahon II, and the Onondaga County Legislature, administered by CNY Arts; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
