We are Andra and Catalin Iliescu , self tought artists from Romania mostly into metalic sculptures but lately into ceramic too .More precisely american raku wich is the most important ceramic art of USA and it was developed by Paul Soldner as he was the first credited to have reduced the metalic luster glazes into a bucket of combustibles.
Our adventure with ceramic started after we learned to make custom clay graphite crucibles to melt metals in them.
Similar to Raku family from Japan that were roof tiles makers originally,we were crucible makers at the begining ,so not really potters in a traditional way.
But we do have a potters wheel that we use ,just not for throwing as our ceramic body is soo coarse that would damage the hands of the potter.It has to be coarse to withstand thermal shock.
We have developed our own way of making pottery ,inspired from bronze sculptures casting with the lost wax technique.We slipcast thick and trim on the wheel after.
The ceramic body for raku wich is a very violent way of firing ceramic,has to withstand huge thermal shock and even with expensive materials there are still many losses .Thats why american raku ceramic its more expensive ,because to make a single ,really good vase ,a raku artist has to fire and break a few.
Our art of firing raku lustre is similar to the Yohen japanese national treasure bowls.A Japanese scientist tryed to replicate those teacups and he fired 22 000 to get just 5 good pieces.Because of such high losses ,those 5 good cups are worth a lot.
Our artwork its similar but we have less losses.
We developed our passion for metals further and we use the knowledge to create ceramic glazes with unusual and rare metals that have never been done before.
Inspiration we got from Leonardo da Vinci , Brancusi ,Modigliani ,Issamu Noguchi ,Paul Soldner ,Buckminster Fuller,Beatrice Wood,Hans Coper,Jerome Massier and honorable mention, Greg Daly .
