Kim Whye Kee
金怀奇b. 1979, Singapore · Works in stoneware and porcelain tea ware
BFA (Hons), Sculpture, LASALLE College of the Arts
Biography
Qi Pottery is the studio of Singaporean ceramicist Kim Whye Kee, an internationally recognised tea master whose work has shown at the China Gongfu Tea Expo in Suzhou. He makes tea ware: gaiwan, teapots, tea cups, and the other vessels tea brewing calls for. Many of the shapes come from Chinese ceramic tradition. His signature pieces include the meiping vase and a traditional herbal medicinal brewer teapot made from the clay dug in Singapore.
Origins, 1979–2008
Kim was born in Singapore in 1979, and his way into art was not the usual one. He joined a street gang as a teenager and spent much of the next decade in and out of prison on charges connected to gang activity and drugs. He first worked with clay near the end of his last sentence, in a prison pottery club he had joined to pass the time. It stayed with him.
Kim Whye KeeI relate pottery to my life experience. If we do nothing to the clay, it is just a pile of mud; but if we put in the effort, it can become a beautiful piece of art.
After his release in 2008, the ink painter Henri Chen Kezhan took an interest in his work and helped him into art school. Kim entered LASALLE College of the Arts at twenty-nine, sitting through critiques and theory in what was effectively a second language, and graduated in 2013 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture, Second Upper Class Honours. In 2015 he apprenticed with the potter Chua Soo Khim at Sam Mui Kuang and went back to the basics of throwing and glazing. He started Qi Pottery the year after.
Material and Method
One question runs through most of the work: what does Singaporean pottery made from Singaporean earth look like? In recent years his answer came from Tampines, where he used the final bit of clay from the island’s former quarry. Those pots are made of the place itself. More recently the work has turned personal. The Homecoming exhibitions, which began in 2024, put the objects of every Singaporean childhood into his craft: gem biscuits, five stones, chapteh, the silver pomfret. The painting matters as much as the pot.
Beyond the Studio
Kim has never kept his own turnaround to himself. He co-founded Beacon of Life in 2011, a support group for people leaving prison, and then Beacon of Life Academy, which uses football to mentor young people at risk. He has volunteered with ISCOS since 2019 and holds their Titan designation, given to ex-offenders who stay clean for years and put work back into the community. He also helped APSN Chaoyang School set up a pottery programme for students with intellectual disabilities. He talks about people much the way he talks about clay: leave it alone and it stays a lump; put the work in and it becomes something.
Selected Works
Homecoming series, 2025 @ Art Outreach
2026 commission, Istana state gifts
Homecoming series, 2024 @ Art Outreach
2025 China Gongfu tea 2nd installation
Homecoming series 2026 @ Art Outreach
China Gongfu tea 4th installation 2026
