Bouke de Vries

The White Lady with Dragonfly (2025)

Broken porcelain fragments, Guan Yin sculpture, glass vitrine. Courtesy of Adrian Sassoon Gallery.

The White Lady with Dragonfly occupies AKI's Atrium as a site-specific meditation on repair, transformation, and the beauty of the broken. The fractured Guan Yin deity — reassembled within a glass vitrine with an integrated dragonfly — proves that the broken can surpass the original's beauty by integrating trauma into history, transforming the Atrium into a space of quiet philosophical contemplation.

Rather than hiding the destruction of historical porcelain, the work celebrates it. The fractured Guan Yin deity finds a new, deconstructed equilibrium, shifting the narrative from loss to rebirth.

"Ganbaru encapsulates persevering through difficult times with determination. Because I work with discarded ceramics, transformation is at the core of what I do, honoring the anonymous past makers."

The meticulous reconstruction requires immense precision and respect (Rei) for the historical craftsmanship of the original object. The act of repair becomes a philosophical statement on endurance (Ganbaru).