Barbara Kandiyoti is a contemporary Belgian ceramicist.
Driven by a lifelong curiosity about creative processes, she explored a range of artistic media over the years, including photography, fashion design, sewing and interior decoration, before finding in clay her preferred language of expression.
It was under the guidance of the artist and teacher Eloise Bonehill that she gradually developed her interest in sculpture. Nature then became her main source of inspiration, and in particular the world of mushrooms, whose forms, life cycles and capacity for transformation feed her artistic research.
For Barbara Kandiyoti, working with earth is at once a technical, aesthetic and spiritual discovery. Her approach rests on attentive listening to the material: understanding clay, accepting its tensions, cracks and unpredictability, while developing a technical mastery that leaves room for what escapes control. Combining clay with other materials, wood in particular, fits naturally into this approach. Like a wilted flower, a split trunk, a broken branch or an overturned mushroom, her works celebrate imperfection as an expression of living things. Making accidents, irregularities and cracks thus become integral parts of each piece, giving it its singularity and vitality.
Beyond learning ceramics, her practice is part of a broader reflection on self-knowledge and our relationship to the world. Each work is part of a personal journey, in which creation becomes a space of exploration that is as human as it is artistic.
Her interest in mushrooms unfolds on several levels. Fascinated by their organic beauty, she is also drawn to their regenerative properties and to their growing place in contemporary thinking about physical and mental health. Through her sculptures, she explores the subtle links between transformation, resilience and the interdependence of living things.
