To be a 10-year-old and happy is quite the norm. To be a 10-year-old and happy — again — needs some work.

Just like her pottery pieces, founder of Gellyvieve, Genevieve Ang, is all about breaking conventions and injecting a dose of fun into art. She lives for her 10-year-old self, reminiscence about her younger days, and lives life pursuing her child ambition.

She teaches herself, through her works, how to be a 10-year-old, again. 
 

It isn’t every day that someone says to you, ‘It’s so dirty, I love it.’

A collaboration with Still Life Floral.

You Get Dirty

It isn’t every day that someone says to you, ‘It’s so dirty, I love it.’ The love for mud goes way back for 28-year-old Genevieve. It was the yesteryears of childhood that she founded ceramic, grew to love being dirty with her hands, and onwards to transforming mud.

She first began ceramics when she was ten, during after-class sessions when it cemented her love for ceramics. Being dirty taught her that all things have hope, just like the plain-looking mud that is molded to clay.

Genevieve’s works often always arouse a second glance. She gives her works a face — sometimes a piqued face, other times a dozing-off face. For all these little intricacies, she hopes that the general public will see art as a little more accessible.

But she recognises that there are those who frown upon her work as well. Some do not take her work seriously, but she has learnt to let comments go.

Having been trained as an architect, she believes that Gellyvieve is a balance of art and design. An upcoming project Genevieve is working on is The Waste Refinery, in which she explores how old or used items can don a new look, too. 
 

You Break

When it comes to pottery pieces, Genevieve feels that it need not be all neatly placed. ‘Art seems very intimidating to the general public. But it need not be so,’ she muses.

Which is why she has on display pottery pieces that have been broken or smashed — intentionally and accidentally. She believes that such exhibitions create a space for the masses to interact with art, allowing for art to be more approachable.

‘Brokenness and imperfection resonate with human beings,’ she shares. And she sees no need to intentionally cover up for mistakes or scars made.

This philosophy also spurred her to collect broken pieces of pottery and give it a second chance. She began rallying her followers on social media to donate pottery shards that they do not want anymore. Genevieve then takes the opportunity to create a new artwork, an earring or anything that comes to mind. Using epoxy glue and gold paint to piece the broken works together is what she calls ‘shin-kintsugi’, a new take on repairing broken Japanese pottery using lacquer. 
 

‘Brokenness and imperfection resonates with human beings.'

"Broken"

Another work of hers, titled ‘The Big Guy’, shows several spheres of different sizes stacked together. By stacking them one atop another in different angles, the work may look a little unstable. She hopes to exemplify the asymmetry of relationships — that relationships are extremely fragile, too, and can be tipped off easily.

She draws inspirations for her works from daily living — experiences, books, insights and more.

Being Gellyvieve is being that 10-year-old again. It is not impossible, for this lady has shown what it means to re-live those years, again.  

Being Gellyvieve is being that 10-year-old again. It is not impossible, for this lady has shown what it means to re-live those years, again. 

Image credits: Gellyvieve.