Linda Ouhbi
Paris, France
Born in Casablanca and currently living in France, Linda became acquainted with pottery in an atelier in Marrakech during a stay in her native country. Determined to continue this path, she spent two years as an apprentice in a potter village in Burgundy before attending the school of applied arts of Paris (Art Appliqué de Paris – Duperré). She is now living and working in Paris.
Creating pieces in stoneware using a hand building technique, her ancestral process necessitates a slow construction and permits the development of a relationship with each piece. The earthy, lived in aspect of her ceramics results from her handmade, thoroughly researched glazes made in her workshop using raw natural materials.
More than a trade or the quest for an aesthetic, Linda Ouhbi approaches her field as a lifestyle; the pursuit of an essential, primordial state.
Lise Herud Braten
London
Lise Herud Braten creates highly textured and natural, organic forms. Inspired by her upbringing in both Norway’s rugged landscape and the urban Oslo, her connection to and appreciation for the natural world informs her entire practice. Lise’s shapes and mark-making imbue her pieces with a distinct sense of place.
After 20 years as a bespoke tailor and maker of haute couture, Lise shifted her attention to the world of ceramics. She explains, “I find similarities in respect of working with a malleable material in the creation of three-dimensional forms, however, with clay I am able to work in a very free and organic way as opposed to the very precise art of tailoring.”
Lise works with many different techniques, from delicately thin, thrown vessels to roughly textured slabs of coarse clay. She often employs different techniques within each piece, resulting in natural and uncontrived objects.
Using a variety of stoneware and porcelain clays, each piece is layered with slips, oxides, glazes and natural ash, applied in a painterly and abstract style. Often the pieces are fired several times, with new layers added between each firing. All of Lise’s glazes are made by her. She fires her pieces in an electric kiln to 1250-60 degrees Celsius.
The effect of this treatment suffuses the piece with a sense of history, of time spent exposed and weathered by the natural elements. Of her inspiration and process, Lise says, “I find constant inspiration in craggy rocks, lichen, moss and layered tree bark, as well as urban decay. My primary interests are texture and natural, undulating forms, and I am constantly exploring new techniques, blends of materials and an array of found objects I use as tools.”
Lise’s work primarily consists of decorative and sculptural vessels and forms, as well as a limited number of functional pieces. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across the UK, and is held in private collections in Europe, the U.S. and the Middle East.
