Through early fall, the Boston Sculptors Gallery presents two compelling solo exhibitions exploring the boundaries of material, form and imagination.
Wen-hao Tien’s “Flight Lessons” invites viewers into a poetic world of hand-formed clay pieces, trapeze-like swings and dynamic sculptures that meditate on freedom, resilience and the urge to push beyond boundaries.
Simultaneously, Ellen Schön’s “Loftings” offers a striking investigation of ceramics at the intersection of tradition and technology, showcasing 3D-printed vessels and sculptures that balance digital precision with the unpredictable vitality of clay. Together, these exhibitions explore the tension between control and chance, human intention and material agency, inviting visitors to witness how art can simultaneously chart philosophical ideas and evoke tactile experiences.
“Flight Lessons,” a new installation by interdisciplinary and conceptual artist Tien, brings a thoughtful fusion of storytelling, symbolism and natural materials; at its heart are abstract, bird-like clay sculptures, meticulously hand formed and displayed in dynamic configurations. Some cling to branches, others are suspended on trapezes, while a few reach or strain toward the unseen. These figures evoke both fragility and determination: delicate yet purposeful, vulnerable yet striving. The tension between grounded weight and imagined ascent reflects the philosophical duality of “freedom from” versus “freedom to.”
Philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s notion of “freedom from,” liberation from external constraints, is embodied in the birds’ struggle against gravity or the precariousness of their perches. In contrast, “freedom to,” the capacity for self-realization and intentional action, is suggested by their elongated gestures, recalling strokes of calligraphy, as though each sculpture is a line of expressive thought poised to take flight.
Tien’s work extends the interplay of movement and stillness to the installation itself. A trapeze-like swing carries clay figures, conveying both playfulness and vulnerability, while a suspended wooden perch knotted with rope holds another, attached by nearly invisible threads. These arrangements highlight the constant negotiation between rest and risk, safety and precarity. While some shapes suggest wings, others resemble written characters, forming an “invented alphabet of flight” that bridges visual art, language and philosophical inquiry.
A few forms, curving and elongating, could easily resemble bananas, or flying banana peels, introducing a subtle political reference to the term “banana republic,” invoking histories of exploitation and the uneven distribution of power alongside the exhibition’s themes of flight, freedom and resilience. Overall, the sculptures act as symbols rather than literal representations of birds, evoking memory, longing and perseverance.
The connection to language is central to Tien’s practice. Her background in contemporary Chinese calligraphy and several works related to language and communication inform the fluidity and expressiveness of her forms, suggesting that mediums like sculpture, or writing, can convey complex human experiences. The “alphabet of flight” serves as a metaphor for human aspiration, imagination and the capacity to shape meaning, echoing broader philosophical questions about communication and cultural identity.
Tien’s personal history further enriches the work. Her father’s legacy as a pilot and keeper of messenger pigeons imbues the concept of flight with memory, longing and familial narrative. At the same time, “Flight Lessons” resonates universally, reflecting struggles of displacement, migration and the courage required to navigate hardship with hope. The exhibition celebrates transcendence, not as a purely spiritual idea, but as the human capacity to exceed prior limits, whether physical, psychological or imaginative.
“Flight Lessons” invites viewers to contemplate freedom, resilience and the transformative power of art and language. Tien’s clay shapes, poised between weight and lift, vulnerability and strength, remind us that imagination itself is an act of resistance and that even humble forms can carry profound philosophical and emotional meaning.
Ellen Schön’s solo exhibition, “Loftings,” presents a compelling investigation of ceramic art at the intersection of ancient tradition and digital innovation. Showcasing 3D-printed sculptures and vessels, the exhibition examines the productive tension between the precision of software and the unruly vitality of clay.
The exhibition’s title derives from Rhino’s “lofting” function, a computational tool that digitally connects a series of curves to generate complex surfaces. Schön combines this method with Grasshopper’s parametric programming, which allows her to manipulate shapes and patterns algorithmically, producing geometries that would be nearly impossible to conceive by hand alone. Yet it is in the translation from digital design to physical clay that the work fully asserts its presence.
As the 3D printer extrudes coils of clay, natural forces, gravity, material thickness, drying time and subtle shifts in the extrusion process, introduce irregularities and distortions that no algorithm could predict. Rather than correcting these deviations, Schön deliberately allows them to shape the final form, embracing what theorists describe as aesthetic chances: moments when the resistance of the material interrupts the precision of code, creating visual and tactile surprises. Schön embraces these “aesthetic chances,” where material resistance subverts code, yielding sensuous, organic objects that feel simultaneously ancient and futuristic.
In this interplay between control and contingency, the work becomes a dialogue between human intention, technological capability and the inherent unpredictability of the natural world. The resulting sculptures are not merely digital translations but living, sensuous objects whose beauty emerges as much from their imperfections as from their meticulously planned structures. Through this process, Schön highlights the tension, and harmony, between mathematical exactitude and organic behavior, inviting viewers to witness how digital design and material reality coexist, collide and ultimately enrich one another.
Her sculptures highlight this duality showing a mix of control and spontaneity. Carefully balancing design and natural form, one vessel’s swelling lobes, lined with thin vertical marks, suggest both algorithmic logic and organic growth. Another, wrapped in zig-zagging ridges, vibrates with a sense of perpetual motion. Gradients of pink, violet and gold accentuate the surfaces, reading less as controlled ornament than as processes of sedimentation, erosion or flesh under shifting light.
This bodily resonance runs throughout the exhibition. Schön’s bulbous, ridged forms recall the curves of hips, breasts or wombs, archetypes of fertility and continuity. Their layered striations echo musculature or skin folding in motion. These works embody the tension between control and vulnerability: digitally precise yet materially unpredictable, they mirror how female bodies have historically been regulated yet continually assert resilience and agency.
Schön frames her approach as “digital-guided coiling,” extending the lineage of hand-coiling, the oldest ceramic technique, into the digital age. Rather than replacing tradition, her process expands it, acknowledging the agency of material, machine and artist alike. In doing so, she counters skepticism within the ceramics community that digital fabrication erodes authenticity. For Schön, authenticity lies not only in “hands in clay” but in the artist’s vision, intention and ability to generate meaning.
By weaving anthropomorphic suggestion, mathematical order and material chance, “Loftings” resists the sterility often associated with digital production. Schön shows that 3D printing is not merely a tool of replication but a generative process that thrives on messiness, discovery and unpredictability. Her sculptures pulse with complexity, embodying both the rigor of design and the unruliness of life itself.
Both “Flight Lessons” and “Loftings” offer visitors a rich meditation on the interplay between intention and chance, control and spontaneity. They also highlight the poetic tension between structure and improvisation, technology and tradition, thought and touch. By engaging with these works, viewers are invited to reflect not only on the philosophical and emotional themes they evoke but also on the enduring power of material, process and artistic vision to transform ideas into tangible, emotional experience.