Hana Karim in her studio in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Portrait © Hana Karim Studio

Hana Karim grew up in an artistic family, which bred her passion for ceramics and influences her creations. Her father, who was strongly influenced by Joan Miró in his young period, is a painter and a colorist who is skilled in using vibrant colors, especially blue, green, turquoise, and splashes of yellow. Hana’s mother is a ceramist who grew up surrounded by nature. She loves the simplicity of prehistoric art and ancient culture, but at the same time she has exquisite manual skills.

Hana focuses on handmade pieces. Her works are styled with a rustic sense of “imperfections” and displayed as softly misshapen forms. She uses washes of color glaze, inviting drips and uneven brush strokes to grace each object’s surface. Each of her pieces has its own unique color scheme—some are bright pastels and metallic, others are blue and green. For another set, she chooses a galaxy theme. During creating, she switches between sudden impulses and rational approaches. She rarely sketches and so she often receives ideas and inspiration randomly, and living close to her studio provides her an opportunity to turn her ideas into objects in a matter of moments. Most of the time she works with slab-building, sometimes with the wheel. She also has a fairly small kiln she turns on once a week. Her daily working process has been consistent from her early days.

For Hana, Earth is the basic connection to space and time. She notes: “Working with something so primal feels like following some ancient tendencies within ourselves; it is a sort of connection to our ancestors, that still haven’t got lost in this age of rapid development and technology. Earth has been here before human beings existed, and will still stay here after we’re gone. It’s remarkable how humankind has found so many ways to manage it and transform it.”

Especially made for the IVORY pop-up exhibition, Hana has chosen a color palette of various shades of beige. Some of her stoneware plates and bowls will soon be available online.