Kika Hinari

Ceramicist

Encrypted messages

Kika’s ceramic creations are extremely light and thin
She designed a series of teapots for the Museum of Cycladic Art Shop
The Attic peninsula's light has a meaningful influence on her work

With extreme delicacy, Kika Inari explores the luminosity and lightness of clay. The Greek ceramicist creates pottery objects, where the light of the Attica is expressed through the thinness of the material. Working mainly with the wheel and the coiling technique, the master craftswoman likes to experiment with this basic material to create beauty, and “to make people’s daily life a little better, and hers, of course”. Before pottery, Kika studied Geology, Photography and Music, which she believes contributed to her unique perception of ceramic. She finds inspiration all around her, in the light, the shadows, but also in cinema, the behaviour of people, and the emotions that words evoke in her, like poetry.

Interview

Why did you choose this career?: It has to do with the properties of the clay itself: that it is something malleable and so sensitive to the environment, like another entity that reacts to your movements and that, in a sense, you can negotiate with. It is something very primary and direct, almost like a love affair.
How do your objects relate to the Attic peninsula?: They are connected with the Attica light itself and how it affects the space around me. I guess if I lived in another longitude, I would have a different perception of the objects through their shadows, so this would somehow be reflected in what I make.
What do you like most about your profession?: I like the facture that i can capture a moment - with my mood imprinted on the clay - it can then travel miles and become part of the daily routine of people I may never meet. It's like sending a kind of encrypted message through my work.
What is a "well made" object to you?: To make ceramics, you need to make decisions at every step of its creation. A well-made object is when all these decisions have been made correctly, there is nothing superfluous, nothing missing. You look at it and you are not concerned about how it was created, you feel a fullness only from its face.

Kika Hinari is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2013