Johannes Nagel

Johannes Nagel reinvents the vase through excavation: he digs into sand with his bare hands, pours in slip, and allows volumes to emerge, more “discovered” than shaped. Between Japanese influences, Bauhaus heritage, and a touch of Californian energy (Voulkos, Kaneko), he composes a form of controlled improvisational ceramics.

Born in Jena, Nagel first trained in Quebec under Japanese potter Kinya Ishikawa, before continuing his studies at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle, where he is now based. This background fosters a focus on direct gesture, imprint, and freedom of form.

A decisive shift came with his use of sand molds: holes, tunnels, and intersections create thin walls, openings, and off-kilter profiles. The Stegreif series (“improvisation”) asserts this primacy of instinct while expanding his vocabulary with plaster planes and channel networks.

After demolding, the surfaces are reworked, ranging from deep monochromes to spiral marks, polychrome veils, and lustrous finishes. His compositions evoke both still life (Morandi) and an immediate archaeology: objects born from emptiness, poised at the threshold between the pictorial and the sculptural.