How's this for combining legendary elements of East and West? One sculptor takes fragments of Chinese porcelain to construct a statue of Venus, the Roman goddess of love, writes Zhang Qian.

Combining, fusing, juxtaposing tradition and modernity is a cliche, and that's what everyone is trying to do. Ancient and modern, East and West.

One of the more interesting is 41-year-old sculptor Wu Yongping who spent years learning from aged craftsmen in Jingdezhen, "China's capital of porcelain" in Jiangxi Province. He uses traditional techniques to convey modern ideas in his solo exhibition "Deconstructing the Spirit of Blue-and-White Porcelain" at Shanghai Sculpture Space.

Famed blue-and-white porcelain symbolizes purity and delicacy, and Wu says his art is intended to soothe and comfort people.

The show features 44 of his recent works including sculptures of different materials, such as porcelain, metal and lacquer. Some are blue and white.

Many sculptures feature human figures in diversified materials, and emphasize the contrast between textures and materials. Once he gets a figure or symbol in mind, Wu demonstrates its rich connotation through combination of diversified materials and colors, texture and grains.

In the series "Beyond the Clouds," he combines figures, clouds and trees into one form through the arrangement of golden, brass, bronze and silvery colors.

Wu uses stainless steel to make the clouds and trees, as lights and shadows play easily on smooth surfaces. Figures are made of resin with lacquer and foil, a traditional technique in the Han Dynasty (206 BC-202 AD).

Posing the figures lying or sitting on the clouds conveys an easy sense of humor and gives viewers a playful moment of imagination.

Freedom and liberation of the human spirit is an important theme. Wu focuses on mankind as a whole, not on individuals.

"We are already suffering pressures from hectic urban life. I see no good in pressing people more through artworks," says Wu. "My job as an artist is to help relieve stress."

In some works, plump, golden-skinned humans fly and ramble above the shiny steel clouds, evoking a sense of freedom and relaxation. The extremely simplified human figures were inspired by 20th-century master Constantin Brancusi.

Wu's works also involve the separation of material and culture in modern society. He creates modern sofas and double beds from fragments of ancient pottery, gluing them together with polyester.

In the series of "Making History," he creates a head of the love goddess Venus using fragments of celadon porcelain.

"Everybody today knows Venus statues as symbols of Western culture and everybody also knows porcelain of the 17th and 18th centuries when Chinese culture prevailed in the world," says Wu. "They are equally important in the human history and I try to combine them."

Porcelain fragments are glued together inside a Venus-shaped resin statue. Yet, can fragments of traditional Chinese culture and aesthetics be glued together in the same way?