Jeremy Brooks works in a territory where ceramics stop behaving like ceramics. In his vases, there is no emphasis on solidity or function: what matters is illusion. The woven, knotted, and compressed surfaces seem to be born from flexible, almost industrial materials, while the reduced scale of the objects heightens the sense of surprise when one discovers that they are made of porcelain.

The core of his research is not the final form, but the material’s intermediate phase. Before firing, the clay is treated like a thread: extruded into long colored cords or reduced to ultra-thin slabs, it becomes elastic, reactive, and open to gesture. Brooks takes advantage of this unstable condition to introduce techniques borrowed from the textile world, translating crochet, knitting, and weaving into a sculptural language that challenges the traditional categories of ceramics.

The resulting vases appear to give way under constant pressure. They bend, deform, and lose their verticality, while still maintaining a precise, almost methodical structure. Some works are dominated by bright colors and rhythmic combinations, others rely on more muted, earthy surfaces, often achieved through wood firing. In every case, the effect is the same: the material appears soft even when it has become irreversibly hard.