about

Joana Kieppe (b. 1997, Brazil) is a ceramic artist based in Rio de Janeiro. Working from her home and selling worldwide, she creates natural, elegant, organic, one offs sculptures and vases that exist somewhere between the archaic and the contemporary. As a Psychology major and a children’s art teacher, she explores her many facets in the encounter with clay. Her personal work was presented at the Milan Design Week two years in a row. Joana first exhibited two Arrowhead vessels at a collective exhibition through the platform @1000vases at MDW2022. At MDW2023, she exhibited the entire Fossil Collection through Isola Design Gallery.

In her work, Joana encounters the emotions of the archaic, slow, entirely handmade production time translated into refined and contemporary pieces. She is a mostly self taught artist who obsessively practiced to find the right technique to transform 2D drawings into 3D ceramics, gaining freedom to discover more and more shapes that could be built using mostly the coiling or the hollowing methods. Deeply inspired by Brazilian wild beauty and archeological findings, Joana produces raw yet elegant pieces that add functionality and character to the environment.

The creation of ceramic pieces dates back to the Paleolithic period and to this date pottery is the most common archeological finding, which express how encrusted in Human History this practice is. Joana’s biggest interest is to continue the ancient work with clay translated into modern pieces that remember they come from the earth and the past.