Inspired by functional pottery and domestic objects, my recent work consists of numbers of lidded jars or small bowls of different geometric shapes, connected by their bodies or lids. I take simple elements and join them in ludic, illogical, theatrical compositions that produce unexpected visual displays of a familiar object. I often change the method of making, proportions and appearance of elements, so the function, if it exists, is not always obvious. The function is sometimes emphasized and sometimes concealed, aiming for intuitive connections. When creating my work I am also engaging in a dialogue with the existing vernacular of vessels and utilitarian forms. I like to combine parts that are challenging to assemble and often try to push the material to do what is not naturally inclined to do. 

 

Research in glaze chemistry is my other interest, a mix of science and magic. I mix my own glazes and slips and apply them in various order for different results.The complexity of materials that come from the earth, like feldspars, minerals, metal oxides, when mixed in different proportions, exposed to the transformative power of fire, leads to unpredictable results that could range from beauty to disaster. Capturing that moment in between, before chips of glaze start falling off the pots, bubbles of molten glass start to burst, or glaze drips overlap and form strange patterns, is what I am trying to achieve in my recent work. Most of my surface treatments are calculated mistakes in functional glazes with  attempts to make them controllable. I have been working with volatile and unpredictable ceramic materials in glazes, trying to achieve lava and lichen like surfaces, or produce a trompe l’oeil effect of wrought iron or stone, and reflect on other craft disciplines, materials and traditions.

 

I am also interested in relations between traditional craft and technology, a dialogue between physical wisdom of the hand versus the precision of the machine, and the deceiving appearance of both. In our time when handmade, curated, artisanal can be appropriated and marketed by mass production and faked to look like it, I am interested in the inversion of this phenomenon: a truly handmade object can look like a machine made, or even like a machine. In my complex forms I like to play with idea of ‘function that might follow the form’, and the alchemist sets as symbols of mysterious process that can lead to different interpretations.