Keeper of traditions
How master Gao Zhenyu combines tradition with modernity at CUHK through zisha pottery
14 August 2026
From the moment he was born, Gao Zhenyu was steeped in zisha (purple clay) culture. Growing up in Yixing, Jiangsu province – the world’s sole source of this distinctive purple-brown clay – not only was the latest artist-in-residence of CUHK’s Art Museum raised by parents who were respected zisha ceramic masters in their own right, but also counted the legendary Gu Jingzhou, widely revered as the preeminent zisha grandmaster of the 20th century, among his family friends.
“Sometimes he would come around for meals, and we’d eat on one of the workshop tables together. We were like a family,” Professor Gao reminisces to CUHK in Focus. It was no surprise, then, that he began his artistic journey under Gu’s mentorship, working as an apprentice at the Yixing Zisha Arts and Crafts Factory.
Yet the young artist was soon pulled by curiosity: in the mid-1980s, the ’85 New Wave – China’s radical avant-garde art movement – was sweeping the nation’s art world, exposing Professor Gao’s generation to bold new forms of artistic expression.
“We learnt that there were methods of ceramic-making beyond the traditional, and that inspired us immensely,” he says. He started wondering about his own craft: Why were artists following these specific methods? What cultural forces had determined that these forms of expression were the best? And how, in an era where contemporising was all the rage, could an artist evolve while remaining faithful to his core artistic tenets?
It has been a journey spanning over four decades, but Professor Gao has found an answer – and it lies in tradition.
Communing with the beginning of history
For many, “tradition” represents an opaque set of ideas, attributable to forebears from the hazy past. But Professor Gao takes a more nuanced view.
“Tradition is built on successive contributions from a community over a long period of time,” he opines. What we call tradition today, the professor believes, might have been the contemporary expressions of yesterday’s artists, who in turn built on the traditions of their own era, which could have been the work of an even earlier generation, and so on. This zisha artist is therefore interested in following this trail of traditions while adding his own personal twist: his work in zisha is characterised by modern embellishments on traditional forms, such as intricately carved patterns or unusually shaped teapot legs. Through these delicate balancing acts, he hopes to add his interpretations of the truthful emotions that lie at the heart of pottery.
To the professor, pottery provides a more potent medium of communication than text. “Pottery was how people talked to each other back when there were no written words,” he says. “If we learn to read pottery, we can understand how people felt 10,000 years ago.” He talks of gazing at prehistoric artifacts, and construing from their inscriptions, though illegible at first glance, the raw emotions of their creators: how an artist became riveted, then distracted, and then frustrated; yet persevered to complete a work of art for a loved one. “At that moment, my goodness – this artist from thousands of years ago now stands right before me, telling me their entire story.”
This desire to commune with antiquity has led Gao to try different techniques, seeking to recapture the purity of emotion that motivated those distant artists. In one instance, he created a large pot using nothing but a smooth stone picked up from a creek bed. “As I hammered away alone at the clay, I felt no different from those prehistoric artists,” he confesses. “Only when you strip back your materials and tools to their most elemental form do you feel the emotions most vividly.”
In search of identity
But why zisha? Growing up surrounded by ceramics, Professor Gao did seriously consider doing something else altogether: at one point, he started training to be a bus mechanic. But after his education, first under his master and then through studies in Nanjing and Japan, he came to appreciate the uniqueness of his family trade. While pottery is practised globally, it is in East Asia that it has reached unprecedented levels of artisanal sophistication; having witnessed the Japanese veneration for tea vessels, he has taken it upon himself to discover the corresponding values in China’s ceramic heritage.
“The evolution of zisha pottery mirrors the progression of tea culture in China,” explains the artist. The deep cultural reverence for tea in the Chinese psyche is, in his view, reflected in the immense love and meticulous care bestowed upon the vessels that hold the liquid; through the relentless refinement of zisha pottery making, from the use of materials to the perfection of techniques, one can trace the evolution of this enduring strand of Chinese culture.
For Professor Gao, zisha pottery and its traditions are far more than a craft: they are a lifelong quest for identity, an attempt to get to the heart of this particular root of Chinese civilisation from the starting point of a longstanding trade. “It is within zisha,” he says, “that I endeavour to find soul, philosophy, values and beauty.”
A living bridge at CUHK
Earlier this year, CUHK invited the professor to serve as its latest Artist-in-Residence. With the help of CUHK Art Museum, an institution celebrated for bridging classical Chinese heritage with rigorous international academic research, and the Lo Kwee Seong Foundation’s generous support, Professor Gao has during this time hosted lectures, demonstrations and masterclasses to share his artistic philosophy and demonstrate the craft of zisha. Every single one of these has filled to capacity, with students and staff members flocking to uncover the secrets of this ancient art. The artist confesses himself flattered, but is above all heartened by such a fervent response so far: “The teachers who come can tell their students about this tradition, and then those students can pass it on – it gives us an anchor, something to treasure in our society of accelerated change.”
This enthusiasm for learning about ancient pottery highlights a growing fascination with traditional arts and crafts among Hong Kong youth. What, in Gao’s view, lies behind this urge to reconnect with ancient art forms? “In this age of artificial intelligence and big data, what do we need most? For me, it’s human connection, and [an understanding of] how we connect with the world,” he says. “I always believe that ceramics and pottery remain among the best mediums for that.” In the eyes of Professor Gao, although machines may produce cheaper wares, it is always the work of humans, and always the traditions they embody, that can tell the most truthful stories.
Postscript:
“During my time at the CUHK Art Museum, I decided to continue with my longstanding creative approaches, both building on tradition and also tracing its roots. After a series of works that went backwards through Chinese dynasties from the Qing to the Shang, this time I drew inspiration from the very first, the Xia. Its ancient cooking pot li, with its primitive, simple yet powerful sculptural curves, was the basis for this zisha teapot.” Professor Gao’s fruitful residency at the Art Museum has culminated with this unique zisha work, which the artist has generously donated to the Museum, and which the latter accepts with gratitude and reverence.
Li-shaped teapot after Xia
Gao Zhenyu zhi and Bowen yueli base mark
Made by Prof. Gao Zhenyu in June 2026 at the Lo Kwee Seong Pavilion, Art Museum, CUHK
Zisha (purple clay)
Collection of the Art Museum, CUHK (2026.0169)
Gift of Prof. Gao Zhenyu
(photo courtesy of the Art Museum)
By Chamois Chui
Photos by Steven Yan
