Barbara Nanning

Barbara Nanning (born January 3, 1957, The Hague, The Netherlands) is a Dutch designer, sculptor, monumental artist, ceramist and glass artist.

Nanning studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy from 1974 to 1979 under Jan van der Vaart, department of Ceramic Design.

During her training, Nanning completed an internship with the potter Pierre Mestre in La Borne, France.

In 1978, Nanning completed a second internship with Harry op de Laak in the department of Monumental Design at the Rijksacademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.

From 1978 to 1985, Nanning worked from her studio home at the Amsterdam Chasséstraat.

From 1978 to 1980, she shared this studio with ceramicist Geert Lap.

At the end of the 1980s, Nanning made her first sculptures for public spaces from ceramic objects that became increasingly larger.

For example, she made the sculpture 'Rotations I', measuring 170 x 200 cm, for Rijksmuseum Twenthe.

Three years later, commissioned by the municipality of Amsterdam, Nanning made 'Draaiingen II' for the campus of the Vrije Universiteit's main faculty.

With architect Paul van Leeuwen, Nanning designed in CAD / CAM the monument to Mt. Fuji volcano.

In 1982, Nanning received her first monumental commission.

For a social housing complex on the 'Ceramplein' in Amsterdam, she designed a wall with incorporated seating element made of glazed bricks for the building's entrance portal.

Since 1985, Nanning has been working in her studio at WG-Plein 21 in Amsterdam.

In 1990 she created the series 'Galaxy', which she showed at the Dutch event 'Keramiek '90'.

In this series, Nanning did not use glazes and engobes, but pure paint pigments.

This technique not only made the kiln unnecessary, but also allowed her to start using painterly colors for ceramics, without the color reflecting as with glossy glazes.

Although this made all colors available, Nanning chose a limited palette of pure, unmixed pigments.

She mixed these pigments with fine sand to soften the contours of her objects.

The rotations in her objects reveal Nanning's fascination with perpetual motion.

'Galaxy' earned Nanning the Ceramics '90 award, and an invitation to participate in the 1991 International Exhibition of Contemporary Ceramics in Shigaraki, Japan.

Foreign trips, particularly to Japan, laid the foundation for Nannings' work.

In Japan - and particularly in the dozens of small, stylized Zen gardens - she drew inspiration for bowls with parallel grooves and gnarled objects made of petrified wood with ceramic components in the 'Terra' series.

In her work, Nanning strives for the sublime of stillness; a perfect finish, the omission of the superfluous and the serenity to get it right.

A balance and harmony between the static and the dynamic, between growth and gravity.

Some single objects inspired by flower buds and seed capsules around 1996 developed into the series of objects in monochromatic colors 'Botanica'.

Monumental commissions for public spaces in Aalsmeer en in Driebergen, and in Wako City, Saitama, followed in 1997.

Since 2001, Nanning also has a showroom there (WG-Plein 65).

Her work can be found worldwide in the collections of 62 museums spread over 16 countries (including Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Paris), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Design Museum Gent, Metropolitan Museum Seoul, and in private collections of Airbus, Fundación Picasso and Mimi and Bill Gates Sr.. among others).

Nanning began her career as a ceramicist.

She emphasized applying color to turned pots in her work, drawing on the color theory of the Bauhaus.

Inspiration also came from the shapes of the bowls and platters made by the original inhabitants of Mexico, as well as being influenced by the bright colors of textiles and plastic utensils from Mexico.

She made bowls and vases adding colored Mexican yarns as decorative or constructive elements.

Autonomous ceramic objects arose from the bowl shapes, which she called 'Fossiele vormen' ['Fossil forms'].

During a study trip to Cappadocia, Turkey, Nanning gained inspiration for works in fired stoneware clay.

She made unglazed, twisted pot and vase forms that were wrapped with string.

Bulges formed between the constrictions.

In 2002 and 2003, Nanning made an installation of flowers, 'Fleurs de Mer I-II' in polyurethane, gilded with gold leaf, decorating the ceilings of the dining rooms in the cruise ships ms Zuiderdam and ms Oosterdam of the Holland-America Line.

Commissioned by the Board of Directors of ABN AMRO Bank, Nanning created the flowers 'Seres', inspired by lush leaves that seem to sway in the wind.

For these flowers, she experimented with the still soft material that she prematurely removed from the molds.

Thanks to the digital script with all the benchmarks, the 'Monument to Mt. Fuji Volcano: Petrified Dynamic Flow', was then made in Japan and placed in Gotemba City, Japan in 2007.