Nascimento, Valeria

First name: 
Valeria
Initials: 
V.
Surname: 
Nascimento
Year of birth: 
1962
Birthplace: 
Brazil
Working period: 
1986 +
CV: 

Valeria Nascimento is born in Brazil in  1962. She initially graduated with a degree in Architecture in 1985. This training helped her to cement her interest in the fusion between urban landscapes and natural forms. She was introduced to clay a year later and became fascinated by its multiple possibilities for expression and the development of ideas. She worked as a ceramic artist in Brazil through the 1990s, moved to southwest London in 1999. Valeria spent her childhood on a farm, giving rise to an affection and fascination with natural forms that inspires her delicate, whisper-thin, white ceramics. Each piece is made from dozens or hundreds of hand-formed ceramic shapes which are combined into small or large, wall-spanning works that take months to assemble.

Valeria Nascimento has created work for luxury brands such as Chanel, Wedgewood, Tiffany and Co's stores in London's Canary Wharf and Montreal, Canada, and for many interior designers. Her work hangs in Somerset House, and has appeared as part of exhibitions at London's V&A Museum and the Museo Historico Nacional in Río de Janeiro, Brazil.

Valeria Nascimento has been represented by the Woolff Gallery in London since 2007.

Visit the website of the artist: www.valerianascimento.com

Pictures: Valeria Nascimento, portrait 2015 (source House of Elemis); Valeria working on a porcelain installation (source Pinterest); square pieces in black and white (source Richard Rabel Interiors); 'Spiral' (source artisaway); round installation in white porcelain (source MAAK London); detail of this installation.

Work of the artist: 

"Her architectural training reappears through repetitive sequences and structures, where tiny individual hand-rolled cones are repeated for many metres, resembling coral reefs, sea anemones, tiny poppy flowers, leaves, petals, or pods. So thin as to resemble paper, their jagged edges and cool whiteness give the impression of hardness at first, but the creamy off-white and shadows cast inside the ceramic hollows instead give off a soft, comforting warmth – an effect put to good use for her wall commission for the cancer clinic at Barts Hospital" (text: woolffgallery.co.uk).