Wallace Chan, a Hong Kong-born sculptor and jeweler who once lived as a Buddhist monk, is presenting his latest exhibition “Vessels of Other Worlds” at the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà in Venice on May 8, coinciding with his 70th birthday and the Venice Biennale, followed by a show at Shanghai’s Long Museum on July 18. The exhibition features three monumental titanium sculptures standing seven, eight, and 10 meters tall, evoking religious oil vessels, and explores themes of birth, growth, and rebirth through the demanding medium of titanium, which Chan describes as the material closest to eternity.
The exhibition matters because it marks Chan’s return to the Chapel after his 2024 show “Transcendence,” continuing his dialogue between space and material, and highlights his unique fusion of Eastern and Western philosophy and craft. Chan’s journey from monk to titanium sculptor, working at a scale most foundries would not attempt, underscores a rare artistic practice that challenges industrial limits and offers a meditative reflection on memory, time, and the cycle of existence, bridging cultural distances between Venice and Hong Kong.