Two ceramic artists showcased their stunning pieces at Beijing's Muyun Space over the weekend in an exhibition titled Empirical Substance.

The ceramic pieces on display were created by American artist Ryan Labar, who has been using clay to express his inner feelings about art for years. He said: Ceramic wasn't something I chose, ceramics chose me. You learn how to work with it, you learn how to communicate with it, and then that sort of communication becomes a language. As an artist, we hope it becomes a poetry where it becomes greater than a language.

Labar's sculptures consist of complex pieces, which the artist said are based on putting small parts together to create a whole. He maintains a studio in the southern Chinese city of Jingdezhen, widely regarded as the country's porcelain capital.

It was there that he received much of his inspiration and produced many of his creations.

The exhibition also presents another ceramic work by Chinese artist Zhang Ming, who uses hundreds of white ceramic chips to portray a traditional Chinese ink wash painting.

My work is called 'Floating Clouds and Flowing Water-Dance.' It expresses my reflection on traditional Chinese culture. Ceramics are widely used in our daily life, but how to use this traditional material to create a new art form was a challenge for me, said Zhang.

Zhang said he got his inspiration from clouds, and as a result, created a three-dimensional traditional Chinese painting. I was inspired by the floating clouds I saw on a plane. The advantage of using ceramic chips is that I can create my work in a three-dimensional way. I use white color to replace all the black elements in Chinese ink wash paintings and put all the chips together to create a whole.

The exhibition runs until July 10.

(CGTN)