HEIRLOOMS OF THE FUTURE GERALD MAK

The ceramic artist talks to Dominique Corlett about Meissen, friendly gestures, and the benefits of distance when considering your heritage

- Dominique Corlett

One of the projects that sticks in Gerald Mak's mind from his ceramics and glass MA at the Royal College of Art, from which he graduated in 2020, was having to choose a piece from the V&A's collection to reinterpret in a work of his own..

Gerald picked a porcelain lemon basket, made around 1737 by Meissen, the finest porcelain factory in Europe and the first to rival the quality of the porcelain made in Asia.

Lozenge-shaped in white, the basket is modelled in elaborate Chinoiserie style, with an outstretched eagle forming a handle at each end, and two of the four feet depicted as lions' paws.

Each side features a cavorting couple in Chinese dress and hats, with the woman holding a parasol, surrounded by cornucopias, swags and flowers. Having grown up in Hong Kong, Gerald was fascinated by the piece, finding it both familiar and alien: 'It was clearly a representation of Asian culture, but seen through Western eyes, and I became really obsessed with that. I was seeing my heritage, but seeing it through different eyes.'

The work that came out of the exercise was Hats!, a collection of ornamental hats rendered in porcelain, inspired by those worn by East Asian characters in Western musicals and operas, as well as the hats worn by the figures on the basket. It was a formative step on his artistic journey to creating the work he makes today: ceramics inspired by traditional Chinese wares, but interpreted through his unique lens of growing up in Hong Kong, and moving to London at the age of 18 to study.