Working as a Creative Director in Germany, New York, Paris, New Delhi for many years. I started working in clay in Paris in the early 2000s, in the beginning out of a sense of arrogance -it was a medium that fascinated me and I felt the wrong people were doing pottery. As I worked on it, I started to respect the craft and all the small details that go into the making of an object. Living now in New York, I keep creating vessels and sculptural objects, looking for beauty in awkward shapes and proportions. My pottery is a very personal journey, growing up with the love of Bauhaus, Minimalism and this German austere outlook on life, mixed into this the philosophy of Donald Duck meets the can-do spirit of America. Add to that the intrigue of machines, the mystery of the parts that all seem to have a function revealed only to the mechanic.
Making these objects I am trying to still surprise myself. I have a rough idea what I want to make, then I start to throw 10-20 shapes and elements, and once they are leather hard I’ll trim, cut and reassemble them. Most of my objects are made of 2-6 pieces. I like all parts of the process, from the monotony of throwing, the flying clay in trimming and the rush of discovery of how the pieces fit together or not.
The decorations and glazing of the objects are another layer to the disinformation of the purpose, and as a graphic designer I like things with type on them.
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Words Kai Zimmermann
Date 15-06-2023
