Monika Debus

Ceramic decorator

©Monika Debus

When ceramics become a canvas

Monika paints on ceramic forms
Her distinctive painting style creates an optical effect
She uses low temperature salt firing

There are two hearts beating within Monika Debus. One is the heart of a painter and one is the heart of a ceramicist. But even though they are beating together, there is a clear hierarchy. “My work primarily focuses on painting and only secondarily on building a form,” she says. The clay bodies serve as a voluminous canvas for her grid-like painting style in black and white. In the interplay of brushstrokes and shapes, a sculpture is created. However, what sounds complex is kept fairly simple. “Technically complicated things, which require exact planning, are not to my liking. I prefer to leave certain things to chance.” For her, chance and deviations are a reminder of the manual creation process.

Interview

How did you start down this path?: I first came into contact with ceramics in a workshop at school. I later took an apprenticeship and studies at the State College for Ceramic Design in Höhr-Grenzhausen. In 1993 I moved into my own studio and have been working intensively with the formal language of ceramic vessels ever since.
How do you connect to local traditions?: I use the same salt-firing technique that was used in the Westerwald for centuries, only with a slight modification to adapt it for modern aesthetics. It is not the functional value of the objects that interests me but the artistic expression.
What is that modification?: The pieces are fired at 1140°C, a comparatively low temperature, so that the matt surface receives a thin salt layer which changes the colours from light to dark. However, the influence of the salt can only be predicted to a certain degree, it can improve a work, but it can also destroy it.
What characterises a well made object?: When an object appeals to me emotionally and takes my thoughts into another world. It is an affective response. It is certainly not perfection that makes a piece good, because perfection is only a technical term.

Monika Debus is a master artisan: she began her career in 1987 and she started teaching in 2000