SHANNON GUO

Blazing Altar, 2002.
Kiln-casting

I liked to go into the garden when I lived in the UK. There was only one little rose. One day I was very surprised to see many tiny butterfly eggs were laid on the rose leaves. I had no idea as to what I should do with them. After one night I decided to do nothing except look at their growth. Day by day, I found I liked them. I wondered when they would change their almost transparent bodies, when the new life would emerge? But many eggs had no chance to emerge after a spring rain. I felt sorry for all the eggs, which died in the rain. Their bodies became part of the clay, but still many new lives were born after this rain. It’s just like the idea of Buddhism, the life cycle is birth, death and rebirth. That is the reason I like the butterfly, also that is the idea I want to use in glass. Because the butterfly’s transformation always implies a person’s growth, achievement and transcendence. The butterfly’s suffering and pain in this process is strength to encourage and inspire attaining achievement. Maybe a butterfly’s life is short; in fact, the butterfly’s life course gives profound enlightenment to us. It appearance from a clown to an extremely beautiful creature, its life beginning from a wriggle, to the soaring in the end, looks extremely weak when actually it is so strong.

A butterfly breaking from the shell and emerging, it opens it’s beautiful wings - ‘Nirvana’ is the last stage of the Butterfly series, but it is also the first stage of this series. It is represented by life’s continuation with the Samsara (cycle of rebirth). And from ancient times to the present day, the process of art sculpture development is also one kind of transformation, regeneration and evolution.

Biography pdf

Guo Qimei filler

Selected Biography

EDUCATION
2004 - 2004: I went to the University of Wolverhampton to study glass art. Within a few months, I had made my decision to work with this material forever. Over the two years whilst studying for an MA, I became very interested in the techniques of Glass painting and Kiln-forming, which include: Casting, Slumping and Fusing. I have also developed my Glass painting skills in addition to the four years experience of Ceramic painting which I gained whilst studying in China.