War Dance
April 2025
Ebony, Mahogany, Hemp, Hair From Head of Joyce, Spalted Tamarind, Padauk, Maple, 389 Hours


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Relevant Texts to “War Dance”

Chiang, T. (2019). Exhalation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling
The Great Silence
Omphalos

Kimmerer, R. W. (2015). Braiding sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions.
Roy, A. (1997). The God of Small Things. Vintage Canada
Le guin, Ursula. (1985). Always Coming Home. Harper Perennial ed., Harper & Row, 2023.
Kesner, L. (1995). Likeness of No One: (Re)presenting the First Emperor’s Army. College Art Association.




(the) Goods
April 2025
Blown Jars, Padauk, Osage Orange, Ebony, Maple, Mahogany

An accumulative collection of residue from sculptural projects...


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Relevant Texts to “(the) Goods ”

Miller, M. (2018). Circe. Little, Brown and Company.
Le guin, Ursula. (1985). Always Coming Home. Harper Perennial ed., Harper & Row, 2023.




Plume
December 2024
Ebony, Hemp, Hair from Head of Joyce, 106 hours

Conduit of War Dance


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Relevant Texts to “Plume”

Chiang, T. (2019). Exhalation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling
The Great Silence
Omphalos

Kimmerer, R. W. (2015). Braiding sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions.
Roy, A. (1997). The God of Small Things. Vintage Canada.



Witness
November 2024
Ebony, Padauk, Hemp, Glass, Walnut, 115 hours


I see you.


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Relevant Texts to “Witness”

Roy, A. (1997). The God of Small Things. Vintage Canada.
Palahniuk,  C.  (2005).  Haunted.  Vintage.
Powers, R. (2018). The Overstory. W. W. Norton & Company.
Dostoevsky, F. translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. (2021). Notes from Underground. Vintage Classics
Euripides. Medea
S
ophocles. Oedipus Tyrannus



Prayer II
May 2024
Mahogany-obsidian, Ebony, Hemp, Padauk, 81 hours


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Relevant Texts to “Prayer II”

Miller, M. (2018). Circe. Little, Brown and Company.
Roy, A. (1997). The God of Small Things. Vintage Canada.
Dostoevsky, F. Frank, J. (1987). Crime and Punishment. Bantam Dell.
Palahniuk,  C.  (2005).  Haunted.  Vintage.


Little Works





Other Works


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About

Bio
Joyce Shi is an interdisciplinary artist exploring ritual and seduction through sculptures made of wood, glass, and stone. She graduated from RISD with a BFA degree in Glass. Her work is informed by her multi-cultural identity, as well as her interest in transformation, craft, and alchemy. She is currently based in Vancouver, BC.



Statement

My practice explores ritual as sustenance for displaced nostalgia, activating a sense of the body as a juncture of collective memories and narrative. In examining the recurrence of ritualistic practice across time, I look to ritual’s past, finding both points of contact and the constraints of cultural loss. These encounters accumulate as “charges” within my work, forming a visual language that translates narrative dynamics into a material presence. These charges map onto my sculptures, which give form to emotional touchstones found within cycles of estrangement and homecoming. The loss from the breakdown of memory’s building blocks derives antidote from narrative.

My process is centered around rewiring fixed relations between materials and their surrounding elements. My background in Glass informs my approach to wood, stone, and metals. Being such a responsive material, glass holds the visual imprints of every shift in touch, movement, and gravity. These visual imprints on the material make my own directives impossible to disentangle from those of larger forces at work. My relationship with material is a collaboration of which mutual transformations occur, one where memories are exchanged and remade. My process, in turn, becomes a ritual in which I find solid grounding within myself. 

 




Contact

email me: studiojoyceshi@gmail.com
@j0ycesh1

© 2025 Joyce shi. All Rights Reserved