8 Up-and-Coming Artists Who Stood Out at Ceramic Brussels
The third edition of the fair was a hotbed of emerging talent
In the Belgian capital last January, the Ceramic Brussels art fair was a busy and brilliant ode to the varied potential of clay. Amid exhibits that ranged from the monumental (sculptures by 83-year-old Japanese-American artist Jun Kaneko at the gallery Sorry We’re Closed’s Best Solo Show-winning booth) to the minuscule (pastel-colored renditions of food by 31-year-old Oslo-based Nellie Jonsson), the recipient of the 2025 Jury Prize was Léonore Chastagner, chosen from 10 “laureates” with less than 10 years of experience.
This year, Chastagner was back with a solo presentation of her uncanny figurative sculptures—from arms folded across a cardigan-clad chest to hands clasping at an iPhone—while ten new creatives made up the jury-selected laureate line-up. The initiative “allows us to grasp the tremendous diversity of artistic approaches of the emerging European scene”, says Jean-Marc Dimanche, the fair’s co-director. Here are eight names to know.
1. Danny Cremers
“The five porcelain vases I’m showing were built through interruption and reassembly, so the process remains visible in the finished work,” says Dutch artist Danny Cremers. The results are colorful, sketch-like confections of multiple, multi-patterned stacked sections, towering but teeteringly so. “The work feels immediate rather than overly refined,” he adds.
2. Marie Pic
French ceramicist Marie Pic’s take on clay is a 2D one. An artist-in-residence at the Centre d’art contemporain de Saint-Fons in Lyon since 2024, her intricate decorative panels are designed to be wall-mounted, taking inspiration from Art Nouveau architecture and organic motifs.
3. Faye Papargyropoulou
A former creative director in the world of advertising, Athens-based Faye Papargyropoulou set up her ceramic studio in 2020. She presents pieces from her ongoing project “From Fragility to Stability”: abstract amalgamations of various forms, which range from the sponge-like and textural to the smooth and sinuous. Clay is folded in on itself and wrapped up with a string. “I explore the balance between vulnerability and strength, both through experimental approaches to clay and on a broader social level,” she says.
4. Kira Fröse
There’s a cartoonish humor to the ceramic work of Kira Fröse. From her studio in Bochum, Germany, acid green extension cables and salmon-pink traffic cones emerge with a plasticine-like playfulness. “My work is not broken—it is exhausted,” she quips. “Functionality is not a measure of worth.”
5. Lorie Ballage
“For me, working with clay is a way of thinking through touch and transformation—allowing material to carry memory, fragility and resistance,” says French artist Lorie Ballage. Based in Bergen, Norway, her main inspiration is water and fluidity. This manifests as sculptural forms combining found objects with colorful ceramic forms—from sinks and taps to swimming costumes.
6. Angelika Stefaniak
Born in Jawor, Poland, Angelika Stefaniak began working in ceramics just a year and a half ago. She describes it as “a process that often involves doubt and solitude;” her organically shaped combinations of clay and textiles have a surreally anthropomorphic quality to them. The Uncommon Fig Tree (2005), for instance, morphs from white-glazed plant life into an uncanny likeness of an outstretched hand.
7. Ninon Hivert
At Ceramic Brussels, Ninon Hivert presents Lambda: “a project rooted in my ongoing exploration of everyday objects and forgotten gestures,” says the French artist. Jackets, jeans, and shoes become “ceramic shells;” devoid of the body they once belonged to, they “function as traces of contemporary postures, inviting the viewer to mentally reconstruct a presence shaped by memory.”
8. Walter Yu
Chinese artist Walter Yu began his creative career as a painter. Today, based in Berlin, glazing techniques are integral to his ceramic practice, which spans architectural and natural forms, such as bridges and waterfalls. His broader artistic aim is ambitious and altruistic: “to achieve a renaissance in contemporary art, liberating the art system from privilege, capital and vanity, making it shareable and collectively built.”
Ceramic.brussels runs January 22-25, 2026