Artist Info

Wayne Ngan is one of Canada’s most distinguished potters. In 1983 he received the prestigious Saidye Bronfman Award as an outstanding Canadian craftsman. A collection of his work is on permanent display in the new Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. His pieces are frequently presented to visiting foreign dignitaries as official gifts from the Canadian government.

Wayne Ngan’s pottery is recognized as embodying - more so than any other Canadian potter - the form and spirit of the great traditions of Far Eastern pottery; the shapes and forms of Japan and Korea and the simple elegance of China’s Sung Dynasty. Perhaps in recognition of these oriental qualities, Ngan is the first living potter to have a piece in Taiwan’s National Palace Museum.

Ngan’s difficult early years as a Chinese immigrant to Canada undoubtedly helped develop the strength of mind and body on which his personal and artistic achievements are founded. Coming to Vancouver from Canton at age 14 to live with his grandfather, he struggled with language and poverty and had to resist his family’s desire that he become a hotel keeper.

Following his creative urges, he put himself through the Vancouver School of Art by working nights in a sawmill. He graduated in ceramics in 1963 and moved to the rural community on Hornby Island, located in the waters that separate Vancouver Island from Mainland British Columbia.

Writing for the Canadian Museum of Civilization, a former curator of the Vancouver Art Gallery has said of Ngan’s evolution:

Living and working by the sea, in a house and kiln-equipped studio all of his own design and making, he has achieved an integration of his life and his art that embodies the values of simplicity and wholeness at the centre of his personal philosophy. He experiments with the materials that nature offers. His fondness for clay bodies that are heavy or gritty, forms that are substantial, and glazes or decoration that create texture (such as salt, combing, slashing), can be seen as reflections of his continuing impulse to create pottery that asserts the elemental basis of the craft.

Ngan works with four different kilns to produce four different kinds of pottery. He has a large gas kiln for high-fired porcelain and stoneware, such as the plates with abstract or naturalist brushed decorations , the black glazed vases and jars, and the oil spot wares. From a small raku kiln come dramatic pieces, sometimes with luminous gold, silver and turquoise glazes. A salt-glaze kiln produces ware in blues, blacks, greens and greys, with the characteristic salt-glaze texture created when salt and seaweed are thrown into the kiln during firing.

The newest and most adventurous of Ngan’s kilns is a 300 cubic feet wood-fired kiln, inspired by the small model of a Sung-Dynasty kiln which he saw 17 years ago in the Beijing National Museum. Backed by his knowledge of kiln construction but aided by only three photographs of the museum’s model, he proceeded to make his own prototypes, one after another, complete with designs for the interior.

Finally satisfied that he had a workable kiln, Ngan sought out and experimented with the latest modern material. The result of his years of research is a cement and brick structure, built slowly over nine-and-a-half months, sculptural in its massive presence.

Surprisingly flexible and sensitive due to the excellent insulation properties of its modern materials, this 20th-century recreation of a 10th century kiln fires quickly to a very high temperature. Often Ngan applies only to the inside of pots for the wood-burning kiln, allowing the firing process to bring out the richness of the natural clay body. The directness and naturalness of this ancient process appeal to Ngan, and he cherishes the surprises and mysteries that come with it.

In Ngan’s work and person we find a compelling fusion of East and West, of ancient and modern. he has revitalized the classical tradition of his Chinese heritage through basic, robust forms, simple glazes and spirited decoration.

He has stated:

Sometimes I close my eyes when making a pot and the pot is all around me, like music; when I open my eye, the pot is in front of me. When I am decorating a pot, it is like the wind striking a bush or a tree - a certain movement, just on mere movement - that’s it. The simplicity of it inspires me. The language of my life is in pottery.

As he reaches maturity as an artist, Ngan reflects upon the artistic process:

“You ask yourself where your art comes from. It’s not just looking at nature. Nature is part of it. But a lot of things in life are very difficult, and it’s hell. But some way, somehow, if one can transcend and transform this hell into art, it’s like forgiveness. It’s knowing how to accept hell into your life, to transform it into art, into beauty, into simplicity, into harmony, That’s my power. That’s what it is to be an artist."

Julia Gibson
Hornby Island
Summer 1990