Materials do not simply present a surface; they carry traces of time, craft, and transformation. In What Materials Know, Shen Yongji begins with material itself, considering how these traces are reorganized through contemporary materials and sculptural structures, and how they become visible through the act of looking.

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The works in this exhibition appear bright, dazzling, and fragile, yet hold an inward force. The fleeting and the enduring, the present and the ancient, surface lightness and interior weight form a continuing tension throughout the sculptures. Working with acrylic, crystal resin, gold, and silver, Shen organizes form through slices, matrices, grids, and translucent structures, allowing light to move and bend within the works and unfold layers of space, reflection, and color.

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Shen’s practice grows from a sustained engagement with the contemporary exploration of traditional Chinese artifacts. He introduces the ancient technique of cuo jin yin - gold and silver inlay - into a contemporary context. Rather than treating tradition as a fixed image of the past, Shen draws from it, inherits it, and integrates it with the present. In his work, traditional craft is not reproduced as ornament, but transformed through contemporary materials, expanding the expressive dimensions of sculptural space.

Presented in Southern California, the exhibition also enters an environment especially attuned to light, space, and the shifting position of the viewer. Here, light does not simply illuminate the work; as viewers approach, pause, and move, it changes the surfaces, colors, and depth of the materials. The translucent structures, reflective layers, and spatial tension in Shen’s work gradually unfold through this process of looking.

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What Materials Know does not propose material as a symbol to be explained, but as a presence through which experience is preserved and revealed. In Shen’s sculptures, traditional Chinese craftsmanship continues and transforms within contemporary art, forming a distinct visual and aesthetic language of transparency, reflection, and layered depth.

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