Ofenhaus

About

Ofenhaus is a ceramics studio located in Madrid and run by architect and designer Nicolás Sfeir and artist and landscaper Cristian Verdejo. This collaboration combines a technical, rationalist vision with a sensitive baroque exuberance, creating ceramic pieces that are imbued with the aesthetic values of both the natural world and the built environment.

These are striking works that respond to a breadth of artistic and technical concepts, adding to the transformative element of design within the modern domestic space. As sculptural forms that both compliment and juxtapose with the contemporary home aesthetic, they intrinsically create a sense of being part of a nuanced tableau or still life, layered with symbolic meaning.

The lengthy processes of designing, making, firing and glazing these handmade pieces produce something lasting, timeless, and beautiful. Nicolás and Cristian use a clear conceptual framework to focus on two lines of production: firstly, designs conceived for everyday use, with an architectural authority in which touch and daily contact are fundamentally essential, and secondly, morphologically daring sculptural works including natural forms conceived through dreamlike and otherworldly aesthetic concepts. Evocative of organic shapes that have grown naturally rather than been sculpted by hand, they transform domestic pieces created for the rituals of everyday life into extraordinary and unique works of art.

Often taking inspiration from the appreciation of form and beauty in the plants and flowers or the urban and architectural elements that surround us, Nicolás's expertise as an architect and designer and Cristian's as a sculptor and landscaper result in the production of pieces of great technical skill and artistic value, that are also statements of profound aesthetic pleasure.

David A.H.B. Taylor (1970). Art historian, curator and writer