Renee So

Renee So was born in Hong Kong in 1974 and grew up in Melbourne, Australia. So lives and works in London. Spanning numerous traditional craft techniques including ceramics, hand-woven textiles and furniture, So's work is centred around representations of the female figure in prehistoric cultures. She bestows monumental grandeur and caricatural qualities to the figures in her works, which weave together a pattern of cross-cultural references. These include prehistoric Europe, Africa and Meso-America as well as ancient Egypt, Assyria and China. Her fictional personas borrow from ancient ritual masks, military and aristocratic portraiture. 

Solo exhibitions include Commodities: Sculpture and Ceramics by Renee So, Compton Verney, UK (2025, forthcoming); The Essence, Lowry, Salford, UK (2024); Kate MacGarry, London (2024); Provenance, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia and UNSW Galleries, Sydney, Australia (2023); Effigies and Elginisms, Cample Line, Scotland (2022); Ancient and Modern, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, UK (2019-20) and Bellarmines and Bootlegs, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK (2019).

Group exhibitions include Self-Made: Reshaping Identities, Foundling Museum, London (2024); Human Conditions of Clay, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK (2022); Chapter Gallery, Cardiff, Wales, UK (2021-22); Hapticity: A Theory of Touch and Identity, Lychee One, London (2021); London Making Now, Museum of London, UK (2021); Transparent Things, Goldsmiths CCA, London (2020) and One Day, Something Happens: Paintings Of People, The Arts Council Collection, Leeds Art Gallery, UK (2015). A comprehensive catalogue, Renee So: Provenance, was published in 2023 to accompany her major survey exhibition at Monash University Museum of Art.