3 Ceramic artists worth discovering

The ceramics scene in New York has been thriving in recent years, and it’s worth following artists who are expanding the boundaries between material, sculpture, design, and storytelling.

Francesca DiMattio

Francesca DiMattio is known for her large-scale ceramic sculptures—works that feel like entire worlds. Her sculptures often read as an endless collage, layered with dramatic shifts between figurative and abstract forms, “misaligned” connections, intentional breaks, and constantly changing textures.

What’s especially compelling is the way her work moves between classical and contemporary, between something that resembles a functional object and a sculpture that feels monumental and unapologetic.

Her pieces are packed with detail, humor, historical references, and a sense of excess that becomes part of the meaning.

Malene Barnette

Malene Barnette is a ceramic artist and activist whose work draws from African traditions and reimagines them through form, pattern, and color.

She references sources such as Ghanaian vessels and Nigerian textiles, and rather than simply representing them, she physically builds their presence through the material itself—folding, layering, and shaping clay so it resembles fabric, then painting intricate geometric patterns with great precision. The result is work that holds both a strong sculptural energy and a clear cultural narrative.

Katie Stout

Katie Stout is best known for her colorful, humorous furniture and sculptural works that play with the thin line between design and art.

In her world, a lamp can become a sculpture of a woman holding a lightbulb, and vessels can appear strangely flat—almost as if made from paper. Her frequent use of gold and bold color choices references a kind of exaggerated baroque aesthetic: kitschy, grotesque, playful, and sharp.