MATERIAL AND MATERIALITY

EKWC • Oisterwijk / The Netherlands • 2016

During her residency at the European Ceramic Workcentre (EKWC) in Oisterwijk in 2016, Katherina Heil developed a new body of work focused on the material and spatial possibilities of ceramics.

Working closely with clay as a transformative substance—initially soft, malleable, and almost fluid, later hardened through firing—she became interested in capturing states of transition and the traces of formation within sculptural processes. The works explore how movement can be translated into form, preserving the imprint of the hand as a subtle, material memory.

Heil produced a series of coloured glazed sticks of varying lengths, arranged to generate rhythmic structures across platforms and columns within an installation. These elements create a spatial composition in which repetition, variation, and interval become central organising principles.

Material contrasts play a key role: a black-glazed platform is scattered with unfired, dried clay dust, evoking a suspended, almost cosmic field—like a frozen sky in which the particles resemble stars. A blue column, titled Water Column, introduces a vertical articulation of flow and transformation, extending the interest in liquid states translated into sculptural form.

Across the installation, fluidity and solidification, gesture and structure, remain in constant negotiation, forming a language of material processes that hold movement in suspension.

This residency period was kindly supported by Mondriaan Fonds and Fonds Kwadraat.