London artist Renee So found the inspiration for her current body of work in the hallowed halls of the Victoria and Albert Museum, where she'd stumbled upon a collection of so-called German Bellarmine jugs — stoneware vessels that 16th- and 17th-century artisans carved to look like portly bearded woodsmen, purposefully firing them full of cracks so they'd resemble archaeological relics. The bulbous ceramic busts that So has been sculpting in their likeness for the last five years carry a similar chronological dissonance, conjuring not just Germanic folk art but Greco-Roman sculpture, traditional playing cards, mid-century pottery, and contemporary illustration. In her drawings, relief prints, and weavings, which she makes by hand on a knitting machine, these enigmatic characters grow limbs and promenade down the street. "My desire to knit pictures was inspired by the beautiful tapestries I would see in historic houses and museums in Europe," So says. Just about the time that we were turned onto her work by a London curator friend, we realized that Sight Unseen contributor Paul Barbera had shot her studio for his blog Where They Create, and we couldn't resist featuring his images here, alongside a short interview with the multi-talented artist herself.
