Bio: Grace Nickel is a Professor at the University of Manitoba with a focus on teaching ceramics. Alongside teaching full-time, she keeps up a rigorous studio practice. She is an award-winning artist from Winnipeg, Canada who has been successful in numerous competitions, including the Mino International Ceramics Competition, Japan, the Taiwan Golden Ceramics Awards, the Cheongju International Craft Biennale in Korea, the Fletcher Ceramic Awards in New Zealand, and the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale. Grace Nickel is the 2023 recipient of the Governor General’s Saidye Bronfman Award, Canada’s highest honour for fine craft in the visual arts.
Artist’s Statement: My art practice is focused on sculptural ceramics and installation. I investigate how material, process, and scale impart meaning to form and how they influence the aesthetic qualities of my studio work through exploring both traditional and new technologies. I am interested in sculpture as a commemorative act – a three-dimensional art form that I use to memorialize three-dimensional life forms (or their former lives). For some time now I have studied the tree and its life cycle as a means to metaphorically represent our existence and the natural transformation of the body from beginning to end. Increasingly the devastating impact of human intervention disrupting these natural cycles has become central to my practice. Although I tend to interpret biology using a forensic lens, there are also hints of regeneration reflected in the new ceramic growth I create, for instance, embellished surfaces that suggest a mediated type of bark, leaf growth, fungal or floral eruptions. Underlying all of my studio explorations is an insatiable interest in the extremely long history of ceramics and how it continues to inform contemporary practice in the clay medium. Most recently I have begun to research the ceramics of my forbears, the Anabaptist potters of Central and Eastern Europe.

Visiting Artists and Scholar of Nova Scotia Colleage of Art and Design (NSCAD) University. PhD (since 2018) and lecturer in School of Design and Arts, Beijing Institute of Technology since 2005. Besides teaching, he is involved in ceramic art and design for more than 20 years. He is active in national and international ceramic arts exhibition. His monograph, “Delicate and Elegant Chinese Ceramics” was published by Beijing Institute of Technology Press in 2018. His takes inspiration from the Chinese ceramics traditions and applies various techniques including casting, salt firing and Raku to express the human bodies and their emotions. Zhao’s latest works are created through 3D modelling and printing.

Ceramics Art Historian and Author.

The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery is committed to the collection, conservation, lending, and public exhibition of clay, glass, and enamel works of art and craft. We promote knowledge and appreciation of these works, as well as their makers, to stimulate public interest in the mediums of clay, glass, and enamel.
The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery is an award-winning national institution based in Waterloo Region celebrating the art and craft of clay, glass, and enamel. In an inclusive community space and cultural hub, we engage artists and the public through exhibitions and collaborate in accessible education programming. We amplify diverse and often untold stories to open dialogue and inspire social change.
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Le Musée canadien de l’argile & du verre se consacre à la collection, la conservation, le prêt et aux expositions d’œuvres d’art et de métiers d’art en argile, en verre et en émail. Nous promouvons la connaissance et l’appréciation de ces œuvres, et de leurs créateurs afin de stimuler l’intérêt du public pour les médiums de l’argile, du verre et de l’émail.
Le Musée canadien de l’argile & du verre est une institution nationale gagnante de plusieurs prix, située dans la région de Waterloo. Il célèbre les arts de l’argile, du verre et des émaux. Un pôle culturel et un espace communautaire inclusive, le musée rejoint et collabore avec les artistes et le public avec des expositions, et des programmes éducationnels accessible. Nous amplifions des histoires diverses et souvent inédites pour ouvrir le dialogue et inspirer des changements sociaux.

Lisa Creskey is a ceramic artist and painter who explores the visual storytelling potential of the clay medium through sculpture and installation. By means of magical realism, she explores the intersection of history, time, nature, landscape, and art history. Investigating these themes, she creates surreal and immersive worlds in which to look for connections and to pose questions on essential concerns for humanity and the environment. Lisa lives and works in Chelsea, Quebec.

Lisa installed her 24 m² porcelain mosaic tile installation La Traverse on the new passivhaus City Hall in La Péche, Quebec, in October 2024. Through the lens of Quebec history, the mural ties together themes on the interdependence of humans and nature through their shared ecological history.

As a member of the AIC-IAC (Académie Internationale de la Céramique), Lisa exhibited Enfolding Landscapes in the 2024 IAC Members Exhibition in Portugal as part of the IAC Congress.

Lisa’s ceramic and mixed media outdoor public art installations were commissioned for the outdoor Sentier culturel/Culture Path in 2022 and 2023 in downtown Gatineau, Quebec. Her mixed media Return to the Nest was acquired in 2023 by the Global Affairs Canada Visual Art Collection. Lisa was commissioned by the City of Ottawa to create and present a sculptural gift to Princess Margriet of the Netherlands at Ottawa City Hall in May 2022. Among her other national honours, Lisa received the Prix du CALQ 2017 – Work of the Year in the Outaouais for her 2016 solo public exhibition Match.

Lisa’s international recognition includes Finalist in the 2020 Taiwan International Ceramics Biennale, Diploma of Honour in the Korea International Ceramic Biennale KICB2019, and being awarded a 3-month 2019 Taiwan Ceramics Residency hosted by the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum. Other international distinctions include an Honorable Mention award in the Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale GICB2017 in South Korea, Finalist in the Mark Rothko Centre’s 2017 International Contemporary Ceramics Competition MEMORY BOX in Latvia, a Recommendation Prize in the 2016 Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, Finalist in the 2014 Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, Honorable Mention Prize in the 2014 Concordia Continental Ceramics Competition 5 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, Finalist in the 2012 4th Biennial Concordia Continental Ceramics Competition, and Finalist in the 2012 Taiwan International Ceramics Biennale.

Lisa’s work has been collected by Global Affairs Canada, the Yingge Ceramics Museum in New Taipei City, Taiwan, the Korea Ceramics Foundation in Incheon, South Korea, the Mark Rothko Art Centre in Daugavpils, Latvia, the Aimia Canadian Art Collection in Toronto, the City of Ottawa Art Collection, and the Prime Minister of Canada’s Office (PMO).

Lisa’s most recent exhibitions in 2024 were the IAC Members Exhibition in Portugal as part of the IAC Congress, and at the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Working in the interstitial zone between functional craft-based and sculptural genres, I deal with strategies of attraction by using light to attract and locate the viewer, to provide an unexpected sense of discovery, and to address notions of conceptual and intellectual illumination.

In my current work, I construct evocative ceramic forms that capture, transmit, obstruct, and redirect light in order to exploit its many qualities through an ongoing exploration of materiality and vision. Without depicting a specific event, object or place, I aim to deliver a sense of the sublime in order to capture and hold the viewer’s imagination.

Recent residencies in Jingdezhen, China have allowed me to explore new material possibilities delivered through innovative technical processes such as physical vapour deposition (PVD). This allows for a thin layer of titanium to be transferred to the work in order to create a lustrous surface that can be used to control parergonal light effects. In natural light, the reflection can transform from a small glimmer to a dramatic arc that activates large portions of the wall; in a darkened gallery space, focused artificial light may be used to illuminate such pieces and exploit areas of surrounding darkness. Such captivating surfaces are used to explore notions of the ephemeral through the creation of a drawing in light and shadow that extends beyond the confines of the physical object.

I hope that these artworks may act as a trigger to recall the drama of the Aurora Borealis and the beauty of the long Canadian winter nights.

My work has long been inspired by the patterns and motifs drawn from the intricate quill and needle work of indigenous Mi’kmaq and women’s textiles, such as quilts, hooked rugs and embroidery. I am also influenced by women’s central role in Western textile history, and by my mother’s involvement in the British yard goods industry earlier last century.

My new series of boxes merge the techniques of textiles and clay, decorative surface and form. Through a complex process, I am able to duplicate woven fabric in porcelain. I am, in essence, weaving the slip, with a warp and a weft.

By combining techniques used in ceramics and textiles I am creating vessels that push the envelope of traditional ceramics. They challenge the notion that ceramic pieces must always be functional. At the same time, they awaken the viewer’s curiosity. The fabric texture of the porcelain, combined with the woven slip, tricks people into taking a second look. They invite the viewer to wonder ‘what’s inside the box?’ The boxes connect conceptually to the hidden potential of Pandora’s Box, and the black box of an aircraft – influenced by my pilot father, who was shot down during World War II – as well as the Perspective Box by Dutch artist Samuel van Hoogstraten.

The box is a potent metaphor for women in ceramics. It is the perfect vessel for containing what we cannot control, and for putting a lid on strong emotions. My porcelain boxes utilize the feminine principal of containment and enclosure. “Black Box” is a term used for something that is mysterious, especially as to function. In these boxes, I have embellished the external in an ambiguous way and left the inner workings to the viewer’s imagination.

I am a Colombian-born Canadian citizen with a background in architecture, sculpture, painting, and public performance. I am IAC/IAC (International Academy of Ceramics) Member. I hold an MA from the Minnesota State University and a MFA from the University of Waterloo, Ontario. I have taught architecture, design and art at university level in Colombia, United States, and Canada. I currently sit on the boards at the Temiskaming Art Gallery, in Haileybury, Sculptors Society of Canada and Ontario Society of Artist in Toronto, the Nippissing Regional Curatorial Collective in North Bay and Contemporary Art Committee, in Kirkland Lake, Ontario; in which I am the creator and current president. My artworks and performances have been shown worldwide and stand in public and private collections. I am fluent in English, Spanish, French and German. As a hobby, I cultivates a passion for bonsai.

My ongoing artistic practice increasingly focuses on the creation of multimedia installations incorporating two and three-dimensional elements, plus dance and music performance, into the context of haptic experience. The intent is to create a liminal space in which the viewer stands inside the environment as a participant, and is transported from everyday reality into a symbolic experience. I am inspired by the plastic sensibilities of unconventional and recycled materials which carry expressive and political meanings. My current life in Kirkland Lake, a small community in Northern Ontario, has opened my practice to the materials of the Canadian wilderness, and its deep coexistence with the wild natural environment. The paintings and sculptures that form part of the major installations also stand on their own as independent works, sometimes serving as exemplars of frozen movement, or mechanically put into action. Increasingly, I am including film and video elements in my work, using them for documentation, and as an integrated part of some sculptural works.

Martina Lantin mines the history of ornament and pattern to explore the mutation and boundaries of functional ceramics through vessels and installations. With a focus on wheel thrown forms, Lantin balances contemporary aesthetics with nostalgic sensibilities. Through her manipulation, clay becomes the display platform, patterns become three-dimensional architectural ornament, and ceramic objects pose questions about utility, history and the domestic.

Processes of change, formation and dissolution are integral to my approach to ceramics. I work with installations of raw ceramic materials such as crystalline salts, metallic compounds, and expansive clay minerals that transform with water in cycles of absorption and desiccation, evaporation and precipitation. Through firing I explore the interaction of molten colorants layered in crystalline glaze as temporal embedments of conflicting thermal processes. I’m interested in how these material processes, their forms and effects, have affinities with both landscape and the body; how experiential encounters with raw and fired ceramic materials can implicate our sense of temporality and corporeality; and how, when situated publicly as events with community participation, they can draw attention to issues of sites and their interpretation.

Ann Mortimer C.M. RCA graduated from Georgian College, Design Arts Department in 1972. Since that time, she has worked as a Teaching Master at Georgian College and has conducted numerous workshops and lectures nationally and internationally. She has been the elected President of the Canadian Guild of Potters, the Canadian Crafts Council and the Ontario Crafts Council and served on the Advisory Board of the Schein-Joseph International Museum of Art, Alfred, N. Y. USA.
Ann’s level of achievement and contributions to the field were acknowledged when she received the Seventh International Ceramics Symposium Award from the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, N.Y., USA. She was nominated on three occasions for the prestigious Bronfman Award in Canada and was elected to the International Academy of Ceramics in 1988. In 2000, in recognition of her creative work and volunteer efforts with arts organizations, she was inducted into the order of Canada and elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Art. In 2004, she received a Visual Arts Award.
Her works in clay are held in the Canadian collections of the Gardiner Museum, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Art Gallery of Winnipeg, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery and the Burlington Art Gallery. Internationally they are held in the collections of the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, N.Y., the State University, Logan, Utah, the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Jingdezhen, China, the , the Keramion Museum, Frechen, Germany, the Decorative Arts Museum, Prague, Czech Republic, the Kunstindustrimuseet, Oslo, Norway and numerous other public and private collections.

Les Manning spent most of his artistic career in his home province of Alberta, Canada and was instrumental in promoting crafts, especially ceramics. Formal recognition of his contribution to Canadian ceramics was capped when in 2011 he was named a Member of the Order of Canada, and then awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.

Though international in influence Les Manning’s art remained true to Alberta. His love for the Canadian Rockies as a subject are renowned. Mountain landscape vessel forms are his best known creations, multi-layered works that play with space, light, colour and surface.
In his more recent years Les Manning explored dramatically new sculptural directions with frequent references to modernism, often drawing on memories of his youth. New colours, simple, stylized forms – rounded, cut or planar – express a deep inner expression of which few had been aware.

Les retired in May 2017.

Susan Collett is a Toronto based artist working in Clay & Printmaking and maintains a full time studio practice since 1993. She received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and received her letters from The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, RCA, 2008 and The International Academy of Ceramics, IAC, 2007.
Collett’s work is presented in numerous collections and exhibitions including The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, The Trump Tower, Miami/Hollywood, The International Ceramic Art Museums, at Fuping China 2007, Sevres Porcelain Museum, Paris 2010, and The Icheon World Museum, Korea where she received a Honourable Mention at the International Korean Biennale 2009. In the same year, one of Collett’s clay sculptures was placed at Rideau Hall, Ottawa within the Crown Collection of the Official Residencies of Canada. In 20011 a sculpture will be included in The International Triennial of Ceramic Arts, Hungary 2011.
She is the first recipient of the Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics at The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery 2001 and placed second prize in The Ernst & Young Great Canadian Printmaking National Competition.
Her gallery exhibitions include The Tom Thomson Gallery, Owen Sound, The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo and The Burlington Art Centre, Ontario with reviews included in international publications: Ceramic Arts & Perceptions, Ceramic Technical, Australia, Ceramic Review, UK and in the recent book Contemporary Ceramics by Emmanuel Cooper, U.K.
In addition, she has presented lectures on her practice in Canada, U.S.A, Israel and China.
SNARE, one of Susan Collett’s sculptures from the Maze Series, is included in the exhibition and collection at the Yingge Museum, Taipei as part of the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale 2012. Another of the sculptures from the Maze Series, was purchased by Foreign Affairs Canada and placed in Washington, DC. Four additional sculptures and two prints have been purchased by the Four Season Hotel, Toronto, for the lobby and their Presidential & Royal Suites. She has three sculptures included in the exhibition Why Make in China?: Canadians Go East October 11, 2012 – January 13, 2013, at The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art.

Mahmoud Baghaeian was born into an Iranian family of artists. He studied carpet and
tile design as well as painting and sculpture. In 1978, he moved to Canada. After studying
engineering, he discovered clay and enrolled in a ceramic program. With his first major
exhibition in 1990 he made a dramatic debut on the Montreal art scene. His work is
characterized by fluid, Persian-inspired designs and refined, classical forms: each piece is
a painting as much as a sculpture, an ancient relic as much as a contemporary art object.
Baghaeian is the recipient of numerous grants and awards. He has exhibited widely, and
his work is in public, private and corporate collections all over the world. In 1999, he was
elected to the International Academy of Ceramics.
For CV, see website. Pour CV, voir site web.