Sgraffito Figure with Hat – Porcelain and Cobalt Enamel by Luis Mandiola (00077)
$350
About this porcelain sgraffito artwork
Porcelain sgraffito and pigments is a porcelain artwork in which the image appears through carving directly into the clay surface. Fine lines are incised and slowly built up, while pigments are absorbed into the material instead of remaining on top of it. The work focuses on a restrained range of colour so that line, rhythm and texture become the main elements, creating a quiet tension between drawing and sculpture.
Sgraffito Figure with Hat is a circular porcelain work in which a frontal figure — blue-glazed, wearing a hat, with mechanical arm-like forms and striped clothing — is incised into the surface of high-fired ceramic. Mandiola uses the sgraffito technique to carve through layers of glaze and clay, building the image through a process of careful subtraction and mark. The horizontal lines that score the surrounding field radiate from the figure’s form, giving the composition a dynamic quality — as if the figure generates its own visual energy outward.
The cobalt blue glaze is absorbed directly into the ceramic body, producing a color of unusual depth and warmth. The figure’s posture — frontal, arms raised, body composed of circular joints and geometric patterning — gives it a ritualistic, totemic quality that connects this work to the long tradition of ceramic figure-making in Chile and across the Americas.
This is the first work in Mandiola’s sgraffito porcelain series — direct, technically precise, and charged with the particular energy of line engraved into a resistant surface. The series investigates what happens when drawing and ceramic resist and inform each other simultaneously. A unique, hand-crafted work.
“Porcelain, sgraffito and enamel. Year 1973. 9.4 x 8.7 x 0.4 in.”
