Maria ten Kortenaar

Ceramics

14 Jul

Written By Lu Ernest Design .

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Maria ten Kortenaar started her creative career as a goldsmith after studying at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 1985. In 1995 she began to work with clay and now works exclusively in porcelain as a ceramic artist.

For Maria, porcelain is a medium that allows her to express what she perceives, feels and experiences in everyday life. Through it, she can translate impressions into her artworks. Happiness, sunsets, rainy days, and landscapes observed in real life, all find their way to her creations. The titles of Maria’s pieces are links to personal memories. The Flower Bomb series, for instance, was a response to visiting Wakehurst Place in Sussex and seeing the stunning explosion of flowers.

Maria mixes colours through her porcelain and builds her objects piece by piece, which is why the patterns are visible inside and out. This style is called Nerikomi, or the inlay technique.

There are two distinct layers in the creation of her ceramics:

The visible layer: To emphasise the many colours in her pieces, she chooses to keep the form as simple as possible: the cylinder. Her cylinders are built up from smaller fragments. To draw in the attention of the viewer, she disturbs the pattern. There is harmony, and there is disharmony created with a rhythm. This uneasiness catches the eye.

The emotional layer: The colours and composition are applied to tell a story; the white porcelain serves as a sheet of paper on which her narrative is written. Maria aims to translate her inner life in such a way that it becomes visible to others.

Maria is a widely celebrated artist whose work has been exhibited extensively around the world.
In 2015, Maria was a finalist in America’s Clayfest in Roseville, California.
Since 2008, Maria ten Kortenaar has been regularly selected for International Ceramic Biennales in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. She has received Honourable Mention, Special Prize, Finalist Prize or positioned as a finalist.
In 2023, she won the prestigious Kaolin prize at Jingdezhen International Ceramic Art Biennale. She was one of five winners worldwide to receive £11,000. Jingdezhen is the capital of porcelain in China. With China being the originator of porcelain, it is a fantastic achievement for a Western artist.