Ani Kasten

Ani’s practice is primarily driven by an interest in exploring the raw materiality of clay. She uses a combination of wheel throwing and hand building techniques to experiment with the interactions between different types of clay, ranging from porcelain to locally sourced "wild" clay. Her works are the result of shrinkage, melting and bending, ultimately studying the nature of change and evolution. Working primarily through the formation of vessels, her work maintains a direct relationship with pottery traditions of the past while interrogating modern aesthetic expectations regarding symmetry, refinement, and beauty. Ani's aesthetic vocabulary is very much her own, honoring the inherent element of chance involved in making ceramics.

Ani Kasten began her career in ceramics in 2000, apprenticing with British ceramist Rupert Spira. After a year in England gaining a foundation in functional studio pottery, Kasten traveled to Kathmandu, Nepal, where she spent four years as head of a project developing a stoneware ceramic facility for artisan potters in the village of Thimi, Nepal. Her training in England and experiences in Nepal were a formative influence on her ceramic sculpture and vessels, which draw on both minimalist British studio ceramics and hand-made antiquities created by indigenous peoples throughout Asia.

"In my process I seek the refined within the rough, the beauty in ugliness—forms imbued with extreme fragility, yet exhibiting inner strength, manifesting the contradictions and opposing forces we find in ourselves throughout the human experience." - Ani Kasten