Next Big Thing: Chenlu Hou

With her hand-built ceramic objects, artist Chenlu Hou conceives sacred, mythical chimera steeped in symbolism and ambiguity. “My works often show women, animals, and plants in imaginative, dreamlike ways,” reflects Hou, currently based in Providence, Rhode Island, as well as Cambridge, Massachusetts, for an artist-in-residence post at Harvard University’s ceramics program. “They come from bits of memory, daily life, or sometimes pure fantasy. I don’t see them as specific people or creatures but as reflections of different emotions—care, confusion, curiosity, or celebration—blurring the line between human and nonhuman.”

Creative process: “I think of my practice as a space where two influences meet,” explains Hou of her reinterpretation of traditional storytelling and her experience immigrating to the U.S. in 2017. “Folk art gives me a visual language in its playfulness and directness, while my daily life here shapes the narratives.”

“Chenlu creates sunny, charismatic ceramic sculptures that personify story lines inspired by ancient Chinese folklore. Through humor and metaphor, her objects reflect an eco-spiritualism grounded in dreams, memories, and cross-cultural journeys,” says Amy Smith-Stewart, chief curator of Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Winter issue under the headline “Next Big Things.” Subscribe to the magazine.