Mingailė Mikelėnaitė

Contemporary ceramics and a sense of the earth.

A member of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association, she graduated from Vilnius Academy of Arts with a bachelor’s degree in ceramics in 2014 and a master’s degree in 2017. She has participated in the Erasmus and Erasmus+ exchange programmes. In 2018, she received an educational grant from the Lithuanian Council for Culture, followed by an independent artist grant in 2020. She has held six solo ceramic exhibitions and participated in 40 group exhibitions in Lithuania and internationally. She has also created works at five symposia in Estonia, Denmark, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania. She works in a ceramics studio in Vilnius, where she creates ceramic art and functional objects, as well as leading ceramics workshops for adults.

“My works reference natural forms. While travelling through different regions, I observed natural formations and phenomena characteristic of various geographical zones. Mountains, mist rising above the grass from lava boiling beneath the earth, the textures of cracked rocks, moss, and tree roots became sources of inspiration. Reduced motifs drawn from these phenomena are reflected in the ceramic sculptures I create. This form of expression awakens the viewer’s intuition, suggesting that the forms perceived in the works are recognizable, yet remain ultimately undefined. Fragmented from a larger natural landscape and abstracted, they open up space for individual interpretation. My work explores the passage of time on Earth and the transience of human presence and its cultural traces in nature. The columns in my works—textured cylinders rising upwards or small chimney-like forms—suggest the consequences of human intervention, which are ultimately engulfed and eroded by nature, by mountains and seas. The main focus of my practice lies in ceramics and nature, and in the unique creative connections between these two fields. I use a variety of materials to create surface textures and different firing techniques to intensify the impression of natural transformation. I am interested in the tectonics of clay and earth, and in the ways in which humans encounter nature.”