Regina-born Jeannie Mah is an internationally recognized artist, who reinvents functional ceramics as thought-provoking sculpture. Mah’s sophisticated vessels, hand-built in eggshell-thin porcelain, resemble oversized, idiosyncratic vases or cups, so fragile that a quick touch could demolish them. Her work has other uses: they eloquently carry the weight of historical and personal meaning. She inscribes images and texts on the delicate surfaces of her porcelain, reinterpreting everything from the decorative flourishes of great European commercial china to family photos. Other preoccupations are apparent in Mah’s ceramic sculpture; she is an ardent cineaste, a committed francophile, and an accomplished video artist. Major works are installed in the Regina City Hall and the Regina Public Library. Other public collections with her works include the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art (Toronto), the Museum of Civilization (Hull, Quebec), the Municipalité de Nyon, Switzerland, and the MacKenzie Art Gallery. Mah studied at the University of Regina (BEd, 1976, BFA, 1993), Emily Carr College of Art (Advanced Diploma, 1979), and Université de Perpignan (Certificat Pratique de Langue Française, 1er degré, 1988). Her work has been the subject of numerous articles and review catalogues, as well as solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the United States and Europe. Mah was a co-editor (with Lorne Beug and Anne Campbell) of a cultural geography of the city of Regina, Regina's Secret Spaces: Love and Lore of Local Geography (2006).
Helen Marzolf