Helle Hansen trained at the Jutland Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1990. Since then, she has exhibited internationally, working from her studio in Copenhagen.
Helle says she never wanted to be anything other than a ceramist. When she was a child, a ceramist lived in her village. She liked to watch the movement in the clay as it took form in the ceramists’ hands. She liked the aroma in the studio, the atmosphere and the energy of creation. The large oven, that could easily fit a little girl inside, could transform earth to art.
The inspiration for this series comes from sailing trips on an old wooden ship. Helle created a set of dogmas that would make it possible to make ceramics on a rocking ship.
– The first pieces should be made effortlessly onboard only with the use of a cheese slicer
– The light should shine through the clay. That is why the material is porcelain clay, burned at 1280 degrees
– The clay, with the help of the cheese slicer’s thinnest string, should be cut in long, thin strips. The strips are formed so that they exactly can carry themselves.
– All the objectives should be unique. Crooked as life itself, and express the porcelain’s nobility and transparency.
In creating this particular ceramics line, she cherishes the notion that all objects are unique and warped as life itself, while encompassing the sublimity and transparency of porcelain.
