By Katie White

In Chinese history, gourds have a rich symbolic and spiritual significance with which the West is largely unfamiliar. In ancient tradition, gourds were dried and then used to store water, wine, and medicine, among other elixirs. Their symmetrical shape was regarded as auspicious, and in Daoism, the form was believed to embody the relationship of the earth to the infinite. In his new exhibition, Zhao Zhao (b. 1982) presents 19 marble sculptures whose shapes are based on wax gourds.

By Wyatt Closs

As humans, we are all fractured in some way. We’ve all had times of resistance or resilience, bending or breaking. It is a connection point of humanity, but one we may not always want to realize. In two sets of works at Roberts Projects — fabric panels and gourd-shaped marble sculptures — Zhao Zhao surfaces these themes with a guided curiosity of his own circumstances, ancestors and mentors.