Lotte Westphael

The work of the Danish ceramist Lotte Westhael is based on a personal immersion in a sophisticated technique, unfolded through a graphic universe. Westphael’s ceramic vessels are translucent and delicate, yet with a strong, geometrical expression. Inspired by Bauhaus textiles and the works of Anni Albers, Westphael has developed her personal ceramic technique over the years, using 3 mm thin colored strips of porcelain, which she forms into intricate vertical and horizontal lines. Working two-dimensionally, the patterns are first painstakingly built from the thin porcelain slabs, then delicately assembled into cylindrical vessels. The paintings of Agnes Martin have been a particular inspiration in the development of Westphael’s Gradient sculptures. Their graduated color sequences are obtained by mixing various shades of color through different grids, composed in a smooth transition from light to dark with a separate strip of porcelain for each new color nuance. Westphael investigates systems and principles and the interaction between patterns and colors, yet her works are profoundly poetic. Westphael is interested in the principle behind the Japanese Haiku poem, with its intuitive leap across the gap between the two parts of the poem, a gap where something is intentionally left out. The dwelling on the resulting opening, which divides a Haiku into its two pulsating parts, is a source of inspiration to Westphael, enlightening the vibrating, emotional quality of her ceramic art.