27 january 2025, Flor Linckens
The sensory ceramics of Su Melo
Until 1 February, Galerie Franzis Engels presents an online exhibition on GalleryViewer featuring the work of Chilean artist Su Melo. Melo’s ceramic sculptures and installations explore the profound interconnection between humans, nature and objects. For Melo, these sculptures are not static forms but rather active translators of sensory knowledge. She considers humans and nature as inseparably intertwined, rejecting a notion of separate entities. Her work transcends the dominant logic of Western individualism, instead emphasising a collective consciousness. Melo explains: "I propose a way of thinking, being and looking where various perspectives and knowledges meet and co-exist."
Ceramics lie at the heart of Melo’s practice. The artist combines contemporary insights with traditional techniques, including the pre-Columbian coiling method, one of the oldest ceramic techniques in the world. This method, where clay is shaped into long coils and moulded by hand, contrasts sharply with European traditions of sculpture, which often involve carving material away, as with marble, or shaping symmetrical forms on a potter’s wheel. While European techniques focus on control and precision, coiling allows forms to develop more organically and intuitively, evolving gradually throughout the process.
Melo’s practice and philosophy were significantly influenced by her time spent with nomadic communities and ceramics collectives in the Andes and India. There, she discovered that art is not merely a form of expression but also a means of embodying heritage and community. In her work, Melo treats non-Western knowledge systems as equal to the Western traditions — which are often linked to a cold kind of logic, rationality and objectivity. This approach is not only decolonial but also an expression of empathy. She argues that we often perceive reality through a filter of preconceived ideas rather than through direct, empirical experience. The space between these two ways of knowing fascinates her — a realm where the ‘known’ and the ‘unknown’ are constantly in flux and influencing one another. Melo: “I mostly work on contradictions found in the daily struggle of realigning dominant thinking structures with an experience. I am searching for and facilitating encounters where the work emerges from the act of meeting rather than the sum of its separate original components. This is how I deal with normalised prejudices, patriarchy and hierarchical ways of being and doing."
Melo’s work reflects a cyclical worldview where opposites do not clash, but exist in harmony. A central theme in her practice is the concept of shared space: her larger sculptures not only offer shelter and tranquility but also prompt questions about how humans and nature coexist. “I make sculptures and installations to explore human behaviour within and across space, redirecting beliefs and perceptive differences,” Melo says.
Melo also investigates how objects can serve as bridges between the inner and outer worlds, between the rational and the emotional. Her works seem to engage in dialogue with their surroundings — reacting to light, air, and even the touch of moss and algae — slowly merging with their environment. Her organic visual language balances abstraction and recognisability, resulting in works that unite the tangible and intangible in a palpable way.
Each sculpture evokes a sense of physical presence without being fully figurative. Their soft, flowing contours might resemble weathered stones or fossils, and at times, it seems as though the pieces have grown organically from their surroundings. Subtle human features also emerge in her sculptures — a gentle curve evoking a back, knee or shoulder, or a hollow suggesting a breathing mouth or nose. Are these sensory channels? Or perhaps, more literally, two tiny dangling legs? Are these mysterious figures trapped within the material, or are they slowly being born from it? Melo’s sculptures remain enigmatic and open to interpretation, offering opportunities for a direct and physical connection between the viewer and the object. They make tangible what usually remains hidden: the fluid way bodies exist in space and the profound interconnection between humans and nature.
Su Melo werd in 1976 geboren in Rancagua in Chili, maar woont en werkt al enige jaren in Nederland. Ze studeerde Grafisch Ontwerp aan de Universidad de las Artes, Ciencias, y Comunicaciones in Santiago, gevolgd door een opleiding in de Beeldende Kunst (Keramiek) aan de Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Daarnaast rondde ze een residentieprogramma af aan het Europees Keramisch Werkcentrum (EKWC) in Oisterwijk. Haar werk was eerder te zien in het Frans Hals Museum en in de Prospects tentoonstelling op Art Rotterdam, een initiatief van het Mondriaan Fonds. Haar werk ‘CONGRESS ROOM’ is onderdeel van de publieke ruimte (in Amsterdam-West), gerealiseerd in samenwerking met BIG ART en het EKWC. Su Melo was born in 1976 in Rancagua, Chile, but she's been living and working in the Netherlands for several years now. She studied Graphic Design at the Universidad de las Artes, Ciencias y Comunicaciones in Santiago, followed by a degree in Fine Arts (Ceramics) at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. The artist also completed a residency at the European Ceramic Work Centre (EKWC) in Oisterwijk. Melo's work has previously been exhibited at the Frans Hals Museum and in the Prospects exhibition at Art Rotterdam, an initiative of the Mondriaan Fund. Her piece "CONGRESS ROOM" is part of Amsterdam-West’s public space, realised in collaboration with BIG ART and the EKWC.
