Heide Nonnenmacher: Selected works, 2020-2025
My work grows out of a fascination with the natural structures that surround me and with the ancient geological history of Nattheim, where I live and work. Around 150 million years ago, this region was part of the Swabian Jurassic Sea. Its corals, sponges, radiolarians, and other marine organisms, preserved today as fossils, provide an important source for my forms. I am especially drawn to their filigree structures, repetitions, and the ways in which organic forms are preserved, transformed, and reappear in new configurations.
Porcelain allows me to translate these structures into sculptural objects. I work particularly with paper porcelain and different carrier materials, especially thin, long-fiber paper, which help me create extremely delicate forms. Pinching is also an important part of my process. I am interested in the moment when porcelain seems to lose its expected hardness: surfaces can appear soft, textile-like, or as if they are moving in water. My exploration of these structures began with the idea of reproducing the subtleties of a wasp or hornet’s nest in porcelain. From there, my work developed through the botanical forms of the Orto Botanico series and toward the underwater world of the Swabian Alb. Fractal structures and the repetition of forms found in nature remain central to works such as Homage to the Jura Sea and Radiolarians.
Since 2020, climate change has become another important part of my work. I am concerned with the effects of global warming on coral reefs, particularly coral bleaching and species extinction. Rather than approaching these questions through resignation, I think about transformation and survival: Where do the living creatures of the reef go when the water becomes warmer or rises? How might they survive, reproduce, or mutate? In translating these possibilities into ceramic form, new structures and imagined organisms emerge. Through them, I continue to explore the complexity of nature and its ongoing processes of growth, transformation, decay, and renewal.
Captions
- Attitude Matters 1, 2025, porcelain, 55–58 cm H × 13–17 cm D. Photo: Ignacio Iturrioz
- Attitude Matters 3, 2025, porcelain, glass, 55–58 cm H × 15–17 cm D. Photo: Ignacio Iturrioz
- Attitude Matters 2, 2025, porcelain, 58 cm H × 22 cm D. Photo: Ignazio Itturioz
- Attitude Matters 4, 2025, porcelain, 54 cm H × 17 cm D. Photo: Ignacio Iturrioz
- Attitude Matters 5, 2025, porcelain, 56 cm H × 18 cm D. Photo: Ignacio Iturrioz
- Attitude Matters 6, 2025, porcelain, 54 cm H × 17 cm D. Photo: Ignacio Iturrioz
- Propagation 6, 2023, porcelain, 34 × 24 × 21 cm. Photo: Ignacio Iturrioz
- Propagation 1, 2023, porcelain, 34 × 17 × 24 cm. Photo: Ignacio Iturrioz
- Propagation 2, 2023, porcelain, 28 × 16 × 19 cm. Photo: Ignacio Iturrioz
- Propagation 3, 2023, porcelain, 23 × 16 × 22 cm. Photo: Ignacio Iturrioz
- Propagation 4, 2023, porcelain, 28 × 16 × 15 cm. Photo: Ignacio Iturrioz
- Propagation 8, 2023, porcelain, 27 × 12 × 9 cm. Photo: Ignacio Iturrioz
- Fractal, 2021, porcelain, variable dimensions. Photo: Doris Leuschner
- ZeitRaum, 2020, porcelain, 55 × 56 × 57 cm. Photo: Doris Leuschner
