Carina Ciscato set her own ceramics studio in 2003.

There are plenty of hot-blooded flourishes in her work.  Early pieces saw her tear the top of thrown forms. She then went on to take them off the wheel at an angle so they would tilt like sails and cut and fold cylinders. Despite an unfaltering commitment to simplicity and geometry, there is often some kind of kink. She likens this to the ‘tropical modernist’ architecture of Oscar Niemeyer or the wavy sidewalk patterns on Copacabana beach by Roberto Burlo Marx.

And, like any modernist, Ciscato wrestles with her delicate pieces being approached as purely decorative, however collectible they are. ‘I like things that people can use such as a cup because people create a relationship with it ,’she says. “But I have slowly realized that “looking” is a function too.’