From 2012 until 2014 I lived in Amsterdam. I’ve met many ceramists there. I had my studio in a small glass room on the roof of our apartment. I didn’t have a kiln though. In the search of a kiln I visited many pottery and ceramic studios and this is how I connected with Inga Kaupelyte, the founder of design label Ingaga Porcelain.

Inga is from Lithuania. She studied art there and has a Bachelor’s degree in Audiovisual arts. She now lives in Amsterdam. She is a designer, an illustrator and a painter. Her beautiful illustrations and paintings are in strong colours and patterns, like black, yellow, dark turquoise and blue. She wants for her art to be functional too so she transfers some of her art to white surfaces of functional ceramics.

She transfers her illustrations and paintings to porcelain with a screen printing technique. Illustrations are all hand painted on paper, scanned, edited and printed with computer on a special paper. This image is then used to make a stencil. With a stencil, ceramic pigments and substrate a decal/transfer is created. This medium with ceramic pigments is dipped into the water so the transparent part with pigments separates from paper and carefully applied to porcelain. When it dries the porcelain piece with illustration is fired in a kiln at around 800°C. Firing makes the transfer permanent because the pigments are burned into the glaze. The ceramics she uses is light weight china porcelain from Stoke-on-Tent, UK. It is white and glazed with transparent glaze.

You can buy Ingaga Porcelain at Amsterdam art markets, few shops in Amsterdam and online here. You can also follow Ingaga Porcelain on Instagram and facebook Ingaga Porcelain.

Photos: Inga Kaupelyte