Lisa Katzenstein

 

 
Lisa Katzenstein was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA; and spent her early childhood in Rome, Italy before moving to the UK at the age of nine. Lisa's cosmopolitan childhood is perhaps evident in the eclectic range. Interests that inspire her ceramics, including Italian Design of the 50s and 60s; the landscape of northern Italy; post war British abstract art; aerial photography; modern African printed textiles; the art work and iconography of science fiction; graffiti; and cityscapes.

In 1983, Lisa graduated from Royal College of Art London with MA in Ceramics. Since then she has developed her career initially designing a range of '50s style tableware, followed by a range of bone China tableware for children; and most recently one-off Majolica ceramic vases and dishes

Lisa's colourful earthenware pottery is hand painted with tin-glaze decoration, the technique, which involves painting colourants on top of the raw glaze prior to firing is commonly referred to as Majolica ware.
 
"I see my pots as paintings which also happen to be functional vases. Majolica has a long history in Europe, originally it was developed to imitate Chinese porcelain, although the ware was called by different names depending on where it was made; it was known as Majolica (or Maolica) in Spain and Italy, and Faience in France and Deft in Holland.

My work differs from traditional Majolica in the way I use it as a medium for painting in its own right. I use wax resist and 'Scraffitto' techniques to inlay coloured lines in a way that is similar to etching"