HELLFIREART COLLECTIVECITRUS HEIGHTS, CA
ARTIST-LED. INDEPENDENT.
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A vertically oriented high-fire ceramic sculpture titled Kids in Cages. The piece is a rectangular, undulating slab of brown, tan, cream, and rust-colored glazed clay covered with approximately 20 sculpted human faces. The faces are tightly packed together, with their forms flowing into one another. Each face has a single prominent, realistic-looking eye, creating the impression of many people watching the viewer. Several of the eyes have thick white clay tears running down the faces. The expressions are solemn and weary. The glossy glaze catches blue and white reflections across the surface. The bottom corners of the sculpture extend into pointed, irregular forms, and one face near the lower right has a small dark opening in the clay. The overall effect is of a crowded group of human faces pressed together, crying and looking outward.
By: Ngân 2026 "Kids in Cages"
A vertically oriented high-fire ceramic sculpture titled Kids in Cages. The piece is a rectangular, undulating slab of brown, tan, cream, and rust-colored glazed clay covered with approximately 20 sculpted human faces. The faces are tightly packed together, with their forms flowing into one another. Each face has a single prominent, realistic-looking eye, creating the impression of many people watching the viewer. Several of the eyes have thick white clay tears running down the faces. The expressions are solemn and weary. The glossy glaze catches blue and white reflections across the surface. The bottom corners of the sculpture extend into pointed, irregular forms, and one face near the lower right has a small dark opening in the clay. The overall effect is of a crowded group of human faces pressed together, crying and looking outward.

By: Ngân 2026 "Kids in Cages"

From the collective

Kids in Cages

Ngân
Year
2026
Medium
High Fire Clay and Glaze
Dimensions
18" X 8"
Availability
available

I made Kids in Cages because I needed to channel the overbearing sadness in my heart. The pain I carry is not just my own, but the pain I feel when I look at what is happening in the world. I read the news and see communities being torn apart, families being separated, and human beings being treated in ways that are deeply inhumane. It seems like injustice is prevailing. Sometimes the amount of suffering feels impossible to comprehend. So I made eyes. Black and Brown eyes. Eyes that watch. Eyes that cry. Eyes that cannot look away. The faces are pressed together, there is no room to breathe or escape. Each face is slightly different because each person is different. Each has their own life, their own family, their own story. But together they become a collective body of people witnessing what is happening around them. I was inspired by Salvador Dalí’s sculptural eyes, but I wanted to take the idea somewhere much more personal and painful. These aren't eyes looking into some surreal dream. I don't have an answer for what to do with all of the suffering I see. I don't know how an artist is supposed to respond to something this enormous. So I made this. Maybe making is my way of refusing to become numb. Maybe these eyes are my way of saying: I see you. I see what is happening. I will not look away. And maybe, for now, that is what I can do.

Words on the work

By: Ngân 2026 "Kids in Cages"

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