Shishi San Explores Her Own Cultural Roots Through Layered Narratives of East and West

Traditional Chinese pottery, the floral motifs of stained-glass windows, Art Nouveau swirls—it all blends together in the work of Shishi San. “I’m interested in that tension between the softness of textiles and the rigidity of ceramics,” explains the Brussels-based artist, whose tufted vessels read like fuzzy, stylized renditions of historical vases. At the Homo Faber craft festival in Venice this past September, one such work—its mouth opening up like a blooming flower—had onlookers resisting the urge to touch it. And who wouldn’t want to run their fingers across the plush wool?

Appropriately, hers is a hands-on method. She begins by stretching cloth onto a frame, drawing patterns directly onto the fabric, then using a tufting gun to apply colorful pile before assembling those 2D surfaces onto a structure and manually sculpting the yarn with scissors. “It allows me to bring together drawing and color,” explains San, who studied visual arts and architecture but developed many of her skills outside the university classroom. After a childhood neighbor showed her how to sew, she taught herself embroidery, knitting, and crocheting, later picking up rug tufting in 2019, a technique she began to apply to three-dimensional forms a few years later.

Today, her work takes cues from antique phoenix-tail vases, ginger jars, flasks, and other traditional Chinese silhouettes, exploring the intersection of ceramics and globalization. “These forms circulated widely from across Asia and were interpreted differently by local cultures,” says San, who is preparing for a summer 2027 solo show at EDJI Gallery in Brussels. Her own versions reveal exaggerated proportions and amped-up color palettes. Sometimes she’ll set a vessel atop a carved-wood pedestal. “They give the pieces a little more presence and create a subtle connection to the way these objects have historically been presented,” she explains.

San, who was born in Vietnam and adopted by a Belgian couple, often nods to her own heritage while emphasizing visual resonances among Asian countries. “Different references meet within one piece,” she says of the works, which picture chrysanthemums, hibiscus petals, and maneki neko (beckoning cats). In Malachite Vase, her largest creation to date at nearly four feet, blooming lotus flowers and Art Nouveau–style leaves and scrollwork draw connections between her Eastern roots and Western upbringing. “It’s a way of creating something personal rather than simply reproducing tradition.”

This story appears in the November issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.