Yana Karol

Ceramic Artist, Writer & Researcher

de l’espace à la terre

Artist Statement

I am building a ceramic sculpture practice between Vallauris and Grasse, in a place where clay, craft and modernist experimentation are part of the local landscape.

My work grows out of a long relationship with space: first as a physicist studying the Earth’s atmosphere through satellite imagery, later through writing and research on how the cosmos has been imagined and represented. I am now bringing that attention back to earth, into clay, structure, rhythm and form.

I am interested in ceramics not as a functional medium, but as a sculptural and architectural material. My current work explores form, structure and the relationship between individual elements and larger compositions. The language is still emerging through making and testing.

I hold a PhD in Physics, a Bachelor's degree in Art History and an MBA. I trained in ceramics in Vallauris and hold the French CAP Tournage en céramique. These backgrounds do not appear in the work as direct subjects, but they shape how I think: through observation, precision, histories and the slow construction of meaning.

I am also President of Synterval Foundation, which supports interdisciplinary work across art, science and culture.

Landing Series

Landing is an ongoing series of ceramic sculptures exploring structure, balance and the physical presence of clay. The title refers to my own trajectory from working with space and images of the Earth to working directly with earth as material. The forms are developed through making rather than representation, sometimes carrying unexpected echoes of architecture, machines or spacecraft.

Space in Frames

Space in Frames explores how humanity has imagined, represented, and visualized the cosmos across history, from scientific images and cultural artifacts to the visual language of wonder, distance, and discovery.

Visit Space in Frames

Exhibitions & Collaborations

I am available for exhibitions, commissions and artistic collaborations, as well as lectures, talks, interviews and media appearances related to ceramic practice, space, visual culture and interdisciplinary work.