LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2024 Winners

Andrés Anza
Object: I only know what I have seen, 2023
Ceramic, acrylic paint
45 x 40 x 150 cm
Awarded at: LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2024
Winner of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 2024

This life-sized totemic ceramic conjures both plant and animal forms. Assembled in five parts, the work is constructed from refractory clay and features a dynamic composition that appears to twist, turn, and fold in on itself. Thousands of tiny, spiked protrusions covering the work’s surface lend it a further amorphic quality. After the work was fired in a kiln to give an even surface, acrylic paint was applied. This monochromatic finish allows light and shadow to further emphasize the work’s highly textured surface.
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Miki Asai
Ring: Still Life, 2023
Wood, paper, kashu, eggshell, seashell and mineral pigment
Various dimensions
Awarded at: LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2024
Special Mention Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 2024

Taking inspiration from still-life paintings as a metaphor for daily life, miniature vessels form the basis of these three sculptural rings. The body of each vessel is formed from paper, and the surfaces are variously treated with tiny fragments of crushed eggshell, pressed to create the illusion of cracked glazing, and mosaicked with seashell to add iridescence. Layers of mineral pigment are then applied to create variations in colour before the vessels are mounted onto hollowed-out wooden blocks. The surface of the wood is also treated using these materials and techniques. The rings are finished using kashu-urushi, a type of lacquer sourced from cashew trees, sanded to create a smooth finish.
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Heechan Kim
Vessel: #16, 2023
Ash wood and copper wire
106.7 x 81.3 x 81.3 cm
Awarded at: LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2024
Special Mention Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 2024

This sculptural vessel demonstrates a masterful control of material and is the culmination of the artist’s desire to create a new form. Using traditional wood-bending techniques most often seen in boat-making, thinly planed strips of ash have been soaked in water and manipulated using a hot iron, before being sanded and stitched together with thin copper wire. The evolution of the form is guided by intuition; the result is a unique organic structure with a continuously smooth surface, and channels which flow through to a large central chamber.
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emmanuel boos
Furniture: Comme un lego (Coffee table), 2023
Porcelain, tenmoku black and wood
67 x 176 x 38 cm
Special Mention Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 2024

Functionality combines with fragility in this coffee table crafted from 98 hollow bricks. Held in place without the use of glue, each brick can be individually lifted from the structure. A sense of playfulness is contrasted with the deep and muted color palette of the bricks, which have been slip-cast from porcelain and fired with a Tenmoku glaze. Plaster molds were used to cast each brick, punched with two holes so that they can be held in place with dowels. The tabletop sits on five sturdier bricks which are also built from porcelain, but using the slab method with an inner wall for strength.
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