Andrei Clontea

Andrei Clontea, born in Bucharest in 1984, is a Luxembourg-Romanian ceramic artist. After graduating in architecture in 2012 and practising this profession for several years, he discovered the many possibilities of handmade ceramics and decided to devote himself entirely to this field. Completely self-taught, he approaches his work with an architectural vocabulary, constantly pushing back the limits of the material in search of new shapes and textures. Although architecture plays an important role, his inspiration is not limited to it. Art, nature and the human body are also a source for his search for new ideas. His work straddles the border between art, craft and design.

The project is a minimalist reinterpretation of the Liichtebengelcher (LIICHTMËSSDAG) lantern as a playful lamp. The functional sculpture on show is made of clay and shaped with a pellet. The process involves rolling the clay on a flat surface until it forms what is commonly known as a "boudin". The strands are used to build the walls of the object by placing them one on top of the other, one layer at a time. After drying, the object is fired twice. Once at a temperature of 950 degrees and then a second time at 1250 degrees, which hardens the material even more.