Ben Loong

Ben Loong’s practice continues to explore the intersections between material process, landscape, and transformation. Drawing inspiration from the imagery of anabranching rivers – waterways that diverge and rejoin – Loong explores how natural systems mirror the cycles of separation and reunion that shape both human and geological experience.

Through ceramic slabs, Loong reimagines the ground as a living record of motion and change, adopting a restrained, almost hands-off approach to what is traditionally a tactile and manipulative medium. Through methods that invite unpredictability – such as allowing the material to shift, settle, and fracture under its own weight and heat – he positions himself as a
facilitator rather than a controller of form.

This process reflects his interest in the balance between control and surrender, mirroring the slow, self-determining movements of geological formation and erosion. Each composition unfolds like a terrain in flux: a record of both natural forces and human restraint. By abstracting the flow of rivers into ceramic topographies, Loong reflects on the ways matter and meaning can drift apart and come together again – echoing the continual shaping of the earth, and the quiet persistence of
renewal.