In the PROFILES section: 7 ceramic artists from South Africa, Russia / Germany, Spain, Belgium, USA, Italy, China / Australia. Coverage of EXHIBITIONS and EVENTS in Germany, USA, GB, China, India, Netherlands, UK, Morocco. In the section ARTIST JOURNAL, we present Tommy Lomeli / USA. And we also have interviews with artists IN STUDIO as well as listings of Dates, Courses, Seminars and Markets.
NEWS
PROFILES
Madoda Fani – South Africa
Yulia Repina – Russia / Germany
Verónica Moar – Spain
Joke Raes – Belgium
Elisabeth King – USA
Gian Franco Morini – Italy
Darian Duan – China / Australia
EXHIBITIONS / EVENTS
Kunstforum – Oberschönenfeld – Germany
RESEARCHES – Detroit – USA
Jane Perryman – Rhuthun – Wales / GB
Belinda Berger – Westerstede – Germany
Artist’s residence – Longquan – China
Adil Writer – Auroville – India
Fusion of Visions – Frechen – Germany
Contemporary Italian Ceramics – Siegburg – Germany
New Generation – Tegelen – Netherlands
Onno-Theelen – Purmerend – Netherlands
Refreshment – Weiden – Germany
Ceramic Art 2026 – London – UK
Ceramics & Travel – Morocco
BOOKS
New literature
ARTIST JOURNAL
Tommy Lomeli / USA –Monika Gass
IN STUDIO
Susan Beiner – Evelyne Schoenmann– Interview / Developing Skills
DATES / Exhibitions / Galleries / Museums
COURSES / SEMINARS / MARKETS
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PREVIEW
Upon entering the gallery, one becomes aware that the installation immediately alters the rhythm of movement through the space. The vessels stand with a quiet authority, their dark burnished surfaces absorbing and reflecting light. Arranged in a deliberate formation, they appear less like individual objects on display than a gathering of presences. Moving among them evokes the sensation of passing through a guard of honour, as though one has stepped on to ground that demands stillness and attention. The encounter carries an unmistakable spiritual charge, setting the tone for an exhibition that moves well beyond material considerations of form and technique.
South African ceramic artist Madoda Fani has built an international reputation for vessels whose intricately carved surfaces and burnished smoke-fired finishes blend contemporary sculpture with ancestral ceramic traditions. In his exhibition Dumalichona: Beyond Matter, Fani presents a body of work which deepens the sculptural and spiritual language for which he has become internationally recognised. The exhibition marks a significant moment in the evolution of his practice: a shift in scale, a refinement of surface detail, and a growing emphasis on the object’s metaphysical presence.
(Rika Herbst)
Madoda Fani
Yulia Repina is a ceramic artist who lives and works in Starnberg, Germany. She was born in St Petersburg, Russia, and studied ceramics there at the State Academy of Art and Industry.
Parallel to her artistic practice, she heads a design team at JetBrains, an
international IT company.
Yulia’s interest in ceramics only developed step by step when she was a student, but evolved continuously. She found her way to ceramics through working hands-om with form and material but does not feel this was a conscious decision. Over time, ceramics simply became her most direct means of expression. However, the more she came to understand about the material and its limitations, the more it came to influence her way of seeing.
As an artist, she predetermined the form right from the start in order to explore inner states and emotional complexity. Figurative elements do not appear in her work to convey concrete narratives but to open space for interpretation, without becoming illustrative in themselves.
Yulia is interested in how opposites can coexist within one work, such as strength and fragility, clarity and insecurity, control and vulnerability.
Yulia Repina
Artists working in the field of visual art are increasingly turning to clay to express themselves artistically. They say that clay is the material that offers them infinite creative possibilities and, thanks to its malleable nature, affords them artistic freedom. By combining their own specialist fields with ceramics, a new genre is emerging that could enrich the field of artistic ceramics. I have witnessed this trend at Ceramic Brussels ceramics fair, which has been held in Brussels, Belgium, since 2024 and is regarded as the leading international art ceramics fair.
Joke Raes studied Fine, Liberal and Visual Arts. It was during this time that she first came into contact with ceramics. She subsequently developed her ceramic works primarily during residencies in the Netherlands and Japan. In addition to clay, she also uses various other materials. This results in individual works and installations, some of which she also presents through performances. She has held solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group exhibitions, received various awards and is actively involved in the arts scene. She was named Artist of the City of Bruges in 2025 and a comprehensive monograph on her work has recently been published.
(Yoon-Kyung Lee)
(Dieter Jacobs)
Joke Raes
According to creation mythology, through haptic interaction, using clay and a rib from Adam, the Creator animated lifeless form. Similarly, artist Elizabeth King, during her 50+ year artistic practice, has sought to render the spark of life that animates living beings. Although she served as Professor with her husband Carlton Newton (a recipient of the Prix de Rome, the highest artist fellowship award in the USA) at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, and before that, at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia (where the author met both of them in 1983), she is not widely known in American ceramics circles. Instead, she focused on building a sculpture practice with porcelain and mixed media while growing the VCU sculpture program into the #1 sculpture program (according to external evaluators) in the USA.
Though King is not prolific, her presence in the art world is known by cognoscenti. Not surprisingly, King – a Guggenheim Fellow, was represented by the Allan Stone Gallery of New York City, a gallery that represented some of the best modern and contemporary artists such as Willem De Kooning, Wayne Thibaud, and Lorraine Shemesh. Unlike any other Allan Stone artist, Elizabeth King works with porcelain and mixed media. She is one of very few clay-based artists to have been represented by a Fine Arts gallery. Perhaps because of the deliberate, painstaking pace of King’s artistic output, her work has not been widely exhibited.
(Marc Leuthold)
Elizabeth King
The Tenth Annual Cranbrook x SAIC Exchange Exhibition – curated by Simone
DeSousa – featured work from twenty-seven artists at the historic Jam Handy building in Detroit.
This past March, twenty-seven ceramic artists from Cranbrook Academy of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) presented RESEARCHES: The Tenth Annual Cranbrook + SAIC Exchange Exhibition to coincide with the 60th Annual Conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) in Detroit, Michigan. The Cranbrook and SAIC exchange exhibition is an annual research collaboration first established by Ebitenyefa Baralaye and Katie Doyle in 2015. Graduate students share their ideas and objects across Lake Michigan by partnering to produce these extracurricular shows, alternating between venues in Detroit and Chicago.
RESEARCHES included works by 11 students from SAIC and 16 from Cranbrook. The artworks presented illustrate the broad research interests across the two cohorts. Participating artists use design, drawing, iconoclasm, automation, automatic making, reclaimed materials, queer figuration, self-portraiture, popular culture, and glaze science among other tools and methods to explore themes of mortality, war, inheritance, adornment, fantasy, religion, erosion, Blackness, transnational identity, gender identity, craft futures, the subconscious and biochemical mind, the slipperyness of time, and the uncertainty of human experience.
(Martin Schapiro)
Martin Schapiro, Tab and Slot Array, earthenware, dimensions variable photo – Midge Wattles
The 5th ceramics exhibition of the AIC/IAC-Benelux Region
This exhibition series, organised independently by members of the Académie Internationale de la Céramique in Geneva, showcases a selection of outstanding works by 25 ceramic artists from Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. On display at the Keramion in Frechen, across both floors, are selected works which – entirely in keeping with the AIC’s ethos – highlight the universality of ceramic culture as a core value. This exhibition is a wonderful contribution that fosters dialogue between neighbouring countries and regions, promotes appreciation for all forms of ceramics, and brings to light and strengthens the spirit of friendship in art and culture.
The exhibition, Fusion of Visions, showcases the impressive diversity and innovative power of ceramic works from neighbouring European regions: unique pieces by artists renowned worldwide for their distinctive style and personal artistic signature in the field of art and ceramics. The works on display offer visitors an insight into the wide variety of styles and techniques found in contemporary ceramics.
Joint presentations of this kind promote cultural exchange at the highest level and highlight contemporary ceramics as a vibrant, dynamic art form. On display are sculptural works and installations, delicate porcelain pieces and technically sophisticated objects of form and colour, some of which push the material to its absolute limits, be it clay, porcelain or mixed media.
(Monika Gass)
Beatrijs van Rheeden
Onno Theelen’s Strange Creatures at the Purmerends Museum, Netherlands
www.purmerendsmuseum.nl 17 April – 18 October 2026
Onno Theelen is a rising star in the world of contemporary ceramic art. He brings a fresh perspective and youthful exuberance to the medium. He began his journey in ceramics only four years ago, yet his talent and creativity have already attracted national and international attention. Theelen learned technical finesse and playful expression from the renowned artist Carolein Smit. Since then, he has developed his own visual language, in which humour, spontaneity and extreme attention to detail prevail.
In Strange Creatures, the Purmerends Museum presents a colourful selection of expressive animal figures. Each creature has its own character and refers to myths, legends and fables from diverse cultures. In this way, the work connects with ancient storytelling traditions, such as medieval animal tales. Theelen uses animals to observe human and social themes from a distance. The result is layered work that both seduces aesthetically and challenges intellectually. A short film offers a glimpse into the artist’s studio and reveals the making process behind Theelen’s work.
In addition to this exhibition, several works will also be shown in the museum’s permanent ceramics display, creating a dialogue between past and present.
Onno Theelens
Tommy Lomeli
Tommy Lomeli is an emerging ceramic artist born in Stockton, California. He holds a BA from CSU Sacramento and an MFA from the University of Kansas and is the recipient of numerous awards including the International Sculpture Center’s 2024 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture award. He also got first place at NCECA’s 2023 National Juried Student Exhibition.
Lomeli is originally from California and later moved and attended graduate school at the University of Kansas. His mixed media work engages themes of identity as a Chicano artist and explores connections within family practices of labour. He uses the vessel as a narrative tool to communicate cultural histories through the lens of lowrider aesthetics and the statues, vessels and sculptures often draw upon the history of Mesoamerican, Mexican and Mayan ceramics, as well as basalt stone carvings.
The use of clay as basic material builds connections between his ancestor’s visual language and the lineage of sculptors in his family.
Every piece of work made by this young artist is a reflection of his identity as a second generation Mexican-American, and a family’s business that spans four generations with origins in Mexico. He grew up as a labourer casting concrete statuary and pottery and this tactile practice naturally led him to pursue an education and career in ceramics.
(Monika Gass)
Tlaloc Brazier, 2025, Terra Cotta, paint, 30,5 x 30,5 cm
Susan, you first studied painting in school. What then influenced your decision to work with clay instead?
Clay was an expressive material that could flex, bend and manipulate into 3D forms. Clay has learning tools; the wheel, plaster mold making, hand building and more. As I continued learning skills and techniques, soon I had started a library with my hands. My interest in glaze was consistent with how I utilized paint. I became interested in the composition of glaze to have a better understanding of how to use it effectively. Having a father who was a chemical engineer formulating drugs helped further my interest in materials and how they could perform. I approach glazing like a painter…blending colour, swirling it around on a surface, bleeding materials together. Ceramics had endless possibilities and there was a lifetime of learning.
Your sculptures are instantly recognizable for their dense botanical forms and intricate detail. How did this visual language first develop in your work?
My mom had a collection of fine porcelains in my childhood home, so I was continuously exposed, which sparked my interest. She utilized fine china for dinners and holidays, various pieces from places and people, always a story to be told. My interest was exploring 18th century porcelains from manufacturers like Sèvres and Meissen, as well as the silver works of the 15th century from Britain and North America. I began in porcelain developing slipcast teapot forms, creating very dense surfaces, translating the enamelled detailed narratives from these historical porcelain pieces. The density was chaos, pure energy filling space, while creating a composition of shapes which danced on the surface flowing through the form.
(Evelyne Schoenmann)
Susan Beiner
