I make lovable, high-quality Raku pottery and stoneware objects, home decor, gifts, functional ceramics. Unique visual and tactile experiences, striking textures.
My name is Ildikó Károlyi, I am a ceramist based in Budapest, Hungary. I make ceramic objects. My personal aim is to create lovable, usable, high-quality pottery pieces that provide a wide range of visual and tactile experiences.
I’ve been making Whispering Globes – tangible universes – for about four years now. With my globes I mean to recall the first use of clay by humans. They ask to be picked up by two hands, they are ergonomic in their roundness and also celebrate the uniquely variable tactile decorative capabilities of our medium. Whispering Globes have a real sense of heritage and yet they are something completely new.
I prefer the Raku technique to create decorative ceramic objects, these are a perfect match for both today’s modern interiors with clean shapes and light colors and for more conservative environments furnished with elegance. Raku ceramic pieces are extremely and unpredictably unique, clean, modern and natural. They inherently reveal the heart and soul of their creator, since the process of creation is often as engaging as Raku objects themselves. Raku pottery is not just a reductive low fire technique, it is a fascinating, adventurous performance.
Raku ceramics reveal the heart and soul of their creator. The process of creation is often as engaging as Raku objects themselves: Raku firing is a fascinating, adventurous performance.
Each Whispering Globe is a special gift wrap for delivering wishes. They preserve all the whispered wishes and release them to the loved ones. Every piece is a distinct universe, a unique gift.
Lovable, usable, high-quality ceramic objects that provide a wide range of visual and tactile experiences. Pieces that can decorate both 21st century homes and public spaces.
Alternative firing techniques are a great temptation: be it naked Raku, horse hair Raku, saggar, barrel or pit firing, they all produce rich and astounding surface effects.
Shaping public taste through reviving and integrating traditions into contemporary object culture, showing an alternative to the globalized, easily accessible, mass-produced objects.
It's an exciting challenge to incorporate traditional Hungarian patterns into contemporary pieces. Ancient symbolism and folk object culture combined with modern techniques open completely new horizons.