Renee So's idiosyncratic practice in ceramics and textiles, and occasionally furniture and glass, is inspired by art history, collections in museums and gendered symbolism. Her work is distinguished by its embrace of craft methods and cross-cultural thinking, an underlying sense of the comedic and a persistent feminist worldview. Produced to accompany a major 2023 survey exhibition at Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Renee So: Provenance showcases more than a decade of the artist's work alongside new commissioned essays by writers Hé lè ne Maloigne and Chus Martí nez and a conversation between So and exhibition curator Charlotte Day. Designed by London studio A Practice for Everyday Life, it features illustrations of the diverse art historical influences that inspire So's works - from the earliest known ceramics to objects looted from Yuanmingyuan (the Qing Dynasty Old Summer Palace) by the British and French in the mid nineteenth century.
About the Author Melissa Ratliff is Curator Research at Monash University Museum of Art. She has worked independently and institutionally on exhibition, public programming, publication and editorial projects, including at the Biennale of Sydney (2015- 18), Manifesta 10 in St Petersburg (2013- 14), dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel (2010- 12) and the 16th and 17th Biennale of Sydney (2007- 10). Charlotte Day is the director of Monash University Museum of Art. She has extensive curatorial and arts management experience, having worked at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) and Gertrude Contemporary (all Melbourne), and as guest curator for the The Anne Landa Award (2013), Adelaide Biennial (2010), TarraWarra Biennial (2008) and Australian Pavilion for Venice Biennale (2005 and 2007).
