Aneta Regel

Regel belongs to a generation holding memories of post-communist Poland. Such histories of transition and contrast have gone on to influence Regel’s life and work. Regel also wrestles with another, more ancient, transition. The ‘post-glacial landscape’ of Poland. Her sculptures such as Gneiss, Knotweed, Galaz, Rock, evoke this topography and Regel’s immersion within it. Emerging from a studio-practice unafraid of risk and non-linear method, her ceramic materials sustain intensive excess. She combines colourful glazes, stoneware, porcelain, volcanic rock, and pigment to create her forms. Regel compels and pushes these elements to their limits, as they undergo cycles of mixing, drying and firing. This is the work of metamorphosis and memory. In the artist’s words, her sculptures are ‘the result of a meeting of the past with present reality’, of landscapes both natural and psychological.

Beyond her vessels and sculpture, Regel has also explored furniture.  The Inside Out Stool’s simple organic form, evokes the raw energy of the urban environment. The glaze, seen to be swirling in free flowing pattern, adds a layer of spontaneity and awkwardness, movement and unpredictability. Through its colour, form, and surface, the ceramic turned furniture explores the relationship between vulnerability and strength and the process of change.

Her own mental landscape and experiences are portrayed through colour, also central to Aneta Regel’s practice. As a woman, a mother, and a womb cancer survivor her connection to the colour red is profound. It is the colour of the interior of our bodies, of blood, of the life force that moves through us from the inside out. For Regel, Red represents vitality, warmth, and ripened energy. It also contains a darker, visceral depth that links powerfully with black, creating a sense of darkness, mystery, and transformation.