Resident Artist

Photo by Katy Anderson.

Chenlu Hou

Medium: Clay
Residency: March 1, 2022–
August 31, 2022

Originally from Shandong, China, ceramic artist Chenlu Hou uses storytelling to combine concurrent, overlapping systems and create a kaleidoscope of all things cultural, taboo, territorial and unforeseeable. Hou endeavors to capture a sense of darkness in her work by reframing, distorting, and highlighting the messiness of this combination. Incorporating a variety of media and forms—such as ceramic sculpture, drawing, industrial materials, video, and alienated figures—she employs the visual culture of folktales as a core vocabulary, which produces a very personal artistic context for her work. She enjoys setting up unconventional and absurd relationships between craft objects and moving images to suggest new and different possibilities.

Hou is currently living in Providence, RI.  She received her BA, concentrating in design, from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, in 2012, and her MFA, concentrating in ceramics, from Rhode Island School of Design, in 2019. Her work has been shown in the United States, Mexico, China, Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. She had a solo show in Taipei, Taiwan, in 2021.

Learn more about Hou’s work at chenluhou.cargo.site.

More Residents

September 1, 2016 –
August 31, 2017
Medium: CLAY
September 1, 2016 –
February 23, 2017
Medium: MIXED MEDIA
September 1, 2016 –
May 30, 2017
Medium: Fiber
August 1, 2016 –
December 31, 2016
Medium: Clay
June 1, 2016 –
August 15, 2016
Medium: Clay
May 31, 2016 –
August 12, 2016
Medium: Fiber

The application for the 2025 – 2026 cycle opens December 1, 2025. It’s free to apply!

The Artist Residency Program is designed to offer time and space for craft artists to focus on their creative work and interact with the public. The program supports emerging, mid-career, and established artists working in all craft media, including but not limited to clay, fiber, glass, metal, wood and mixed media.

The application for the 2025 – 2026 cycle opens December 1, 2025. It’s free to apply!

The Artist Residency Program is designed to offer time and space for craft artists to focus on their creative work and interact with the public. The program supports emerging, mid-career, and established artists working in all craft media, including but not limited to clay, fiber, glass, metal, wood and mixed media.

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