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Vanessa Anastasopoulou

  • Ceramicist
  • Athens, Greece
  • Master Artisan
Vanessa Anastasopoulou Ceramicist
Contact
Greek, English, German
Hours:
By appointment only
Phone:
+30 6972875576
©All rights reserved

When painting meets ceramics

  • • Vanessa's ceramics combine functional with the ritual and sculptural
  • • For her, ceramics is a byword for becoming more resourceful
  • • Her work combines her double heritage: Greek and Swiss

Having studied painting at the Royal College of Art, Vanessa Anastasopoulou started practising ceramics 15 years after her graduation. Her first ceramic objects were a series of colourful plates for her household, decorated with birds and a transparent glaze. Drawing and painting are intrinsic to her ceramic process. The works are thrown on the wheel followed by hand-building and the use of stains, engobes, underglazes, pastels, porcelain slip, and various glazes. Her ceramics have been created with attention to detail and their formations can be mirrored to those of the natural world such as branches, flowers and leaves. For the past eight years, she has been sharing a studio with other artists in Exarchia, a vibrant neighbourhood in the centre of Athens.

Read the full interview

Works

  • ©vdokakis
  • ©vdokakis
  • ©All rights reserved
  • ©Vanessa Anastasopoulou
  • ©Vanessa Anastasopoulou
Photo: ©vdokakis
Internal landscape

These clay ceramic vessels, used as canvases of an internal landscape, are initially thrown on the wheel, then hand-built and coloured with stains, pastels, underglazes and a clear glaze. The glaze resembles a blossoming spine, veins that become roots, internal organs transformed, giving alternative perspectives of the interior body.

Length 31.2 cm
Width 6.5 cm
Height 44 cm

Photo: ©vdokakis
Planet Series

This series of archetypal earthenware vessels is influenced by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince’s planet – as well as the art of Ikebana. Vanessa Anastasopoulou’s creates the imagery of a fragile landscape reminiscent of the coral, moon, volcanic formations, and other geographic phenomena. Initially thrown on the wheel, the sculptural ceramic piece is then hand-built and decorated with stains, under-glazes and a clear glaze.

Height 23 cm
Diameter 37 cm

Photo: ©All rights reserved
Totem

This series of cylindrical totemic vases is handcrafted from stoneware fired at 1,200°C, painted with stains and a clear glaze raku technique. Most of them are double based, so the sculptural elements can be combined with those of the natural world, branches, flowers, leaves, in ways that remind that nature, art, and design can be at constant interplay.

Photo: ©Vanessa Anastasopoulou
Stellariums

This series of functional stoneware dishes are decorated with black under-glaze fired at 1,220°C. The lines have been delicately carved on the painted ceramic surface and then topped with a clear glaze, creating imaginary stellar maps. Handmade spoons and minuscule ceramic paraphernalia give a playful note.

Photo: ©Vanessa Anastasopoulou
Planet Series

This series of earthenware clay vessels have been fired at 1,100°C. The earthenware dishes are painted with slips, engobes, stains and a clear glaze combining the functional, the ritual and the sculptural. Like otherworldly living organisms, through their rhythmical patterns and colourful, tactile surface, they seek to transport us to a lost Arcadian landscape.

Find Vanessa Anastasopoulou in the itinerary

Athens: the birthplace of the amphora
10 locations
In more than 3,000 years of existence, the city of Athens has acquired many titles, such as the centre of classical philosophy and the origin of democracy. Follow our itinerary to discover Athens from a new perspective: as the birthplace of the amphora.
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