In the PROFILES section: 7 ceramic artists from Germany, Japan, South-Africa, UK, Denmark. Coverage of EXHIBITIONS and EVENTS in Austria, Austria, Netherlands, Germany, USA, Turkey, Morocco, UK. In the section ARTIST JOURNAL, we present Ding Youyu . And we also have interviews with artists IN STUDIO as well as listings of Dates, Courses, Seminars and Markets.
NEWS
PROFILES
Benedikt Hipp – Germany
Kasen Tatebayashi -Japan
Susanne Worschech – Germany
Andrew Walford – South-Africa
Peter Beard – UK
Mette Maya Gregersen – Denmark
Gerda Lepke / Kathrin Buskies – Germany
Christine Ruff – Germany
EXHIBITIONS / EVENTS
ERASMUS + – Vienna – Austria
Fusion of Vision – Gmunden – Benelux / Austria
Bouke de Vries – Leeuwarden – Netherlands
WINNERS – Heidelberg – Germany
Ceramic Heritage in Miniature – International
Emerging Artists 2025 – Salt Lake City – USA
As Thin as a Promise – Istanbul – Turkey
Jewish Women and Design – Berlin – Germany
Extra-Nature – Geneva – Switzerland
Earth Architecture in Morocco III – Ceramics & Travel
Revolutionary Approaches in Clay – Chippendale – UK
BOOKS
New literature
ARTIST JOURNAL
Ding Youyu (Taiwan) – Ting-Ju Shao
IN STUDIO
Yael Novak – Evelyne Schoenmann– Interview / Developing Skills
DATES / Exhibitions / Galleries / Museums
COURSES / SEMINARS / MARKETS
ADVERTISEMENTS
PREVIEW
By chance, I discovered a small exhibition space on my trip to Arita, Japan in 2016. It was filled with colourful porcelain – classically painted, yet somehow excitingly fresh. The artist who designed and painted the pieces was KASEN. Afterwards, she and her father also gave us a tour of her studio.
Some time has passed since that first encounter, and I’ve met KASEN several times since then – most recently at an exhibition of her works in Osaka. Her paintings are characterized by a delicacy and perfection, yet also a vitality that fascinate me.
KASEN’s works consciously emerge between tradition and modernity. For her, ”tradition” doesn’t simply mean preserving the past. On the contrary: a tradition is also just a handed-down trend. What we call tradition today is what emerged as “new” 400 years ago. This is why, KASEN seeks to preserve the “now” as a “tradition” of the future by integrating modern sensibilities. Her works subtly interweave modern designs and ideas with classic techniques and forms. Tradition can only survive if it allows for change – this is at the heart of her work.
During a conversation, she told me how she grew up in the small porcelain town of Arita, a valley of the river of the same name, surrounded by mountains and abundant nature. “I played in the river, went on picnics in the mountains and played a lot in nature. I was a bit wild.
(Ralf Burger)
Kasen
The international character of the German ceramics magazine New Ceramics is largely due to the travel-driven curiosity and broad outlook of its editor-in-chief, Bernd Pfannkuche. In this respect, there is a clear affinity with the founders of Galerie Terra Delft: Simone Haak and myself, Joke Doedens.
Located in the historic city centre of Delft, Galerie Terra Delft offers a diverse and high-quality presentation of contemporary ceramics. With a dynamic exhibition programme and a permanent collection, the gallery serves as a sales platform for renowned artists from both the Netherlands and abroad. The collection ranges from functional ceramics to purely sculptural, non-functional works.
Since its founding – now nearly forty years ago – our perspective has always been outward-looking. The ambition to engage internationally was there from the very beginning. But how do you turn that ambition into reality?
One of the ways we gave this goal was by organising exhibitions focused on a single country. In 2001, we presented the group exhibition Great Britain at Terra, featuring works by Felicity Aylieff, Tim Andrews, Peter Beard, Jenny Beaven, Peter Lane, and Duncan Ross. This was our first encounter with Peter’s work – and his personality – marking the beginning of a long and inspiring collaboration.
(Joke Doedens)
Peter Beard
For Mette Maya, working with clay has always been an instinctive attraction – that unspoken dialogue between her subconscious, her hands and the material. Her practice is a paradox – both a search for belonging and an escape from it, a dialogue between presence and absence. Each of her forms reveals a quiet tension, at once resolved and at the same time unravelling, balanced yet in flux, embodying the contradictions that have shaped her journey. This duality has given her work its distinctive voice – where opposing forces meet, finding equilibrium in the space between.
It had been a few years since I had seen Maya when I greeted her at the airport in Kathmandu; that familiar beaming smile full of excitement and anticipation for what was to come, even after the long flights from her home in Denmark. I had spent a decade in Nepal researching the centuries-old crafts still being practiced in the Kathmandu valley including our mutual passion for ceramics, and Maya had arranged a two week residency in a local paper factory; what was likely to be a refreshing change from her routine at home. Crafts dominate the landscape and culture here and leave an indelible mark on anyone who visits.
I was curious how well she would adapt to a culture so different from her base in Europe. Not everyone can adapt in such a short time frame. What had inspired her to come? What did she hope to achieve by working in another medium? Paper is not so different from clay in that it can take on any form from the wet stage to dry, and Maya had already created works in clay where paper had played an integral part of the process, only to be burned away in the firing.
(Gary Wornell)
Mette Maya
Descriptive but imaginative titles like Bowl Vase, Bulbous Vase, Rocking Bowl or Mushroom Bowl describe the various simple, sculptural vases and bowls that Christine Ruff has developed in her Wuppertal studio since 2004. These vessel-like objects are characterized by an unpretentious and elementary formal language and a clear, sometimes pastel, sometimes intense colour scheme. They invite the viewer to rediscover the forms and surfaces of seemingly familiar objects and to experience their position between art and design, between spatial artefact and everyday object. During making, she deliberately leaves open the question of whether the objects are to be used as vases, bowls or containers, or whether they are to be placed in the room as decorative or art objects. The form of the object and its presence in the space are paramount – the object’s function is secondary. For her, the design of a ceramic object should not be subordinate to its respective function or use, but rather showcase the autonomy of the artistic work.
She had already developed the first works of her own in the late 1980s, but without considering the prospect of freelancing. It was only when she worked as an assistant in the studio of the internationally renowned artist Tony Cragg that she was encouraged to forge her own path and rely on her visual intuition. Working with Cragg alongside the already familiar materials of clay and plaster, she learned a wide variety of production techniques and also expanded her repertoire of forms and the scale at which she could work. She realized “You can do a lot of things, you just have to know how.”
(Valeria Liebermann)
Christine Ruff
A Unique Travelling Exhibition by IAC Benelux Member
Many countries have national ceramics associations that organize exhibitions and events to connect their members. For example, the NVK (Dutch Association of Ceramicists) used to operate in the Netherlands. In Belgium, the WCC-BF (World Craft Council – Francophone Belgium) remains active, uniting craftspeople in Wallonia. However, the WCC-VL has been inactive in Flanders for some time.
During the 2022 AIC/IAC conference in Geneva, I spoke with several ceramists from the Benelux region, some of whom I had never met or hadn’t seen in years. We shared the disappointment that, despite the many professional ceramicists in our area, mutual contact often remains sporadic, even though we live relatively close to each other.
The idea to make a change began to take root and we agreed to meet.
In the autumn of 2022, about ten ceramists (out of the 25 AIC/IAC Benelux members) held an initial meeting, some participating via Zoom. We decided to organize a regional exhibition, possibly accompanied by lectures, workshops, and demonstrations. Some members committed to reaching out to museums, galleries and cultural centres. After several meetings, we crafted a joint vision statement and identified several potential locations.
(Patty Wouters)
Work by Yves Malfliet
Exhibition at the Keramiek Museum
Princessehof, Leeuwarden, NL
5 July 2025 – 16 August 2026
Shards, shards, shards… what is it that makes ceramic fragments so fascinating? For years, we have encountered artistic explorations of them. Bouke de Vries offers visitors a particularly stimulating answer in his survey exhibition, which runs until 16 August 2026 at the Dutch National Museum of Ceramics in Leeuwarden. And my tip: be sure to see it.
“It’s somehow strange that broken objects like these, which are just as well made as intact ones, simply end up in the trash”, says Bouke de Vries. After visiting the presentation Unbroken, featuring some 95 exhibits including eleven created especially for this exhibition, the only option is enthusiastic approval. For however diverse the individual works may be, the viewer always senses the artist’s respect for the special quality and history of his source objects. And that these are made primarily, but not exclusively, of ceramic is made clear right at the beginning of the exhibition by a two-thousand-year-old Chinese wooden horse. Its rotten wooden legs have been replaced by stacked, interlocking Chinese ceramic fragments, and on its back, a collection of ceramic fragments from China, Korea, Japan, and Europe, is also piled up. The centuries-old cultural and economic exchange along the Silk Road could hardly be depicted more strikingly and, above all, more aesthetically.
(Gudrun Schmidt-Esters)
Porcelain Vengeance (V2 Rocket), (detail), 2024
International prizewinners in ceramics, glass, wood and jewellery
14 September – 16 November 2025
Galerie Marianne Heller, Heidelberg
What makes a piece into an award-winning artwork? Is it technical virtuosity, the depth of expression or the silent presence in space? The exhibition WINNERS at Galerie Marianne Heller in Heidelberg examines precisely this question and brings together international works that have shaped contemporary craft in impressive fashion.
The idea emerged from the desire to bring together outstanding positions in applied art in a shared framework – beyond classic categories and far removed from any functional classification. Works are in the spotlight that distinguish themselves through creative quality, consciousness of material and an unmistakable language of form and that have found international recognition.
Applied art repeatedly experiences phases of particular attention. Movements like Arts and Crafts or the Bauhaus show how closely societal development and creative expression are linked. Perhaps we are now standing at just such a turning point again. Whereas in many countries, creative crafts have long been included in fine art, the distinction between fine and applied art has survived in Germany with remarkable stubbornness to this day. This exhibition aims to make a contribution towards a broadening of view and demonstrating a new perspective – through artistic works at the highest level.
Elke Sada, Germany photo – Christoph Kremtz
Ding Youyu – Taiwan
Ceramics has a long history, with its forms and glazes continuously changing and evolving. From 2018 to 2024, Ding Youyu’s (b. 1993) works underwent leaps in stylistic evolution and technical refinement. Rooted in the essence of classical bronze ware, the lines fluidly transition between intricate and minimalist forms, using semi-abstract animal heads to encapsulate the essence of mythical beasts and creatures. Wall-mounted heads of deer and sheep feature sharply defined antler contours, while semi-abstract forms like chickens, lions and dragons exhibit full-bodied silhouettes. These heads are topped with basin-like vessels finished in metallic-like glazes of chrome and cobalt. The semi-abstract heads harmonize vivid lines and colours with their forms.
(Ting-Ju SHAO)
Ding Youyu – Taiwan
Yael, can you share the story of how you first discovered ceramics and what drew you to the medium?
My journey began when I was working as a teacher and guide at the Rocke-feller Museum in Jerusalem. I was allocated a room filled with beautiful ancient Nabataean pottery and that is where my fascination with ancient cultures and ceramics first took root. Being surrounded daily by these vessels – objects that carried both history and function – sparked a deep curiosity in me about clay as a medium. Over time, this fascination grew into a calling, leading me to explore the expressive, material and cultural dimensions of ceramics as my artistic language.
The fascination with the tactile and transformative qualities of clay sparked my artistic journey. There was something both grounding and limitless about it. I was drawn to the immediacy of working with my hands, the dialogue between fragility and permanence and the deep history of clay as one of humanity’s oldest creative languages.
(Evelyne Schoenmann)
Yael Novak
