Gábor Somoskői
Kezemura
Ceramicist
Budapest, Hungary
Recommended by Judit Osvárt
A meditative approach
- Gábor is a self-taught ceramicist
- He sees his work as connecting all four elements of nature
- He enjoys the infinite variety of objects that can be made
Gábor Somoskői was initially into photography and worked a lot with wood, creating skateboards for years, but he always loved as a child. He started working with ceramics more seriously in 2012, when he bought his first small kiln. Today, he is happy that he can work with ceramics in his own workshop, full-time – which he considers to be a kind of meditative activity, and which he learned by doing, step by step, in a self-taught way, without any formal education. Gábor likes to see his work as a continuation of a 10,000 year-old tradition, as, to put it very simply, he makes bowls and utensils from clay in the same way as his pre-historic predecessors – but he has modern tools and ingredients to do so.
INTERVIEW
I have always been attracted to creations made with two hands. I used to work with wood, too, I like to shape objects with my hands. Ceramic items have a kind of personal character that I really like. I see people attached to these objects because they are present in defining moments.
A black gavel mug made of chamotte black clay with a white glaze. I still have this, I love its rawness. It’s very rudimentary in shape, but I see in it what I want to mould now: attachment and immersion to the material.
I wheel throw and trim almost every single piece. The pieces of the Goro series are made with faceting: I cut the round shapes by hand to create the form I want to see. I mix most of my glazes myself and have been experimenting a lot lately using local and collected clays.
The first time I worked with a wood fire kiln in 2017. It is a very elementary experience to feed the fire for 12 hours and then wait. I usually work with an electric oven, which has a lot of benefits: predictable and accurate. The wood-fire technique is the opposite of everything: a much rawer technique.
