Zhu Ohmu

Zhu Ohmu is a contemporary artist born in Taiwan. She graduated from Elam school of Fine Arts in Auckland and is currently based in Naarm, Melbourne. Her work investigates the resurgence of the handmade and the ethics of slowness in an age of mass production and automation. Interested in human relevance in the age of automation, her work imitates 3D printing. To create her works she lays extruded coils one atop the other by hand, without any preliminary planning. Vessels emerge intuitively – bulging, lopsided, wonky, human. Built through stacking, folding, and pressing, the vessel is dictated by the weight of moist clay pushed to its structural limits. Unlike a machine Zhu is able to detect the slightest change in the properties of the clay body under different environmental conditions and is able to create something asymmetric, yet sturdy.

The works exhibited in JOY – Organ Pipe Mud Dauber #14 and Organ Pipe Mud Dauber #15  – are named after a predatory wasp. This particular wasp utilises coils to build their nests. Interested in the entangled relationship between the machine, human and non-human ecologies, Zhu delighted in finding this parallel connection which reveals the intricately interconnected world we live in.

Zhu is represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert in Sydney, Australia.