Katarina Wells
Artist's Statement
Katarina has worked with ceramics for almost 30 years, moving between fine porcelain, paper clay and heavily textured stoneware. She is drawn to organic sculptural forms and finds inspiration in the natural bounty that surrounds her.
Her practice is shaped by wabi-sabi—the philosophy of finding beauty in the imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. She uses clay to map the physical evidence of existence: layers of compressed sediment, leaves decaying into the earth, animal tracks fading in the sand, tangled seaweed washed ashore.
Most pieces ‘grow’ slowly over a period of up to a week, a process that allows her to step back and observe where a piece intends to go. Raw oxides and porcelain slip leave the tactile surface intact, while repeated glaze firings build irregular, unpredictable depths that echo the textures of the earth. Vitrified clay holds these weathered moments—a monument to the ephemeral.
Biography
Katarina Wells (b. 1969) is an Austrian-born ceramic sculptor who lives and works from her studio in Clareville on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. She completed a studio ceramics course at TAFE in 2000 and has grown her practice since. She was a finalist in the Northern Beaches Art Prize in 2017 and 2018 and has presented four solo exhibitions with Curatorial+Co. since 2019.
