The Contemporary Ceramics of Anna Resmini
- Dec 18, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 5
Anna Resmini approaches clay as a space of listening rather than control. Her sculptural works emerge through instinct, material dialogue, and an acceptance of unpredictability. Part of a generation of independent Italian ceramic designers and artists, she reflects in this interview on ceramics as a practice rooted in error, presence, and the quiet act of giving form to the void —values that resonate deeply with the world of Italian handmade ceramics.
"From the initial block of clay to the decorative details, I have never followed a fixed plan. I have always found the best solutions by acting within a continuous dialogue with the material." Anna Resmini
How did you begin your journey in design and craft?
I encountered ceramics about ten years ago, during a period when I was looking for a free creative space that could be entirely mine. From the very beginning, I found in ceramics a very fertile place where I could allow myself the luxury of making mistakes and of using the unexpected as a creative stimulus. It was a place where I felt I could lose myself and search for myself through a direct relationship with the material.
A very important person in my journey was Gabriella Sacchi, a prestigious Italian ceramicist. Gabriella was my teacher—the one who introduced me to this craft and with whom I faced my first failures. I will always remember the day she had to tell me that a vase I had worked on for more than a month came out of the kiln completely shattered.“Ceramics is like this,” she told me. “Sometimes it does what it wants—just like life.”
Is there a philosophy or an inspiration that guides your work?
When I work with ceramics, I enter into full contact with the material. Its three-dimensionality surrounds me and brings me into a completely immersive sense of time. It is the act of creating and modelling itself that suggests the possible geometry of the object and the result I want to reach. An approach that resonates with the material logic and unpredictability at the core of Italian handmade ceramics.
The work takes shape in my hands in an instinctive way, and very often in an unexpected one. It is as if the solutions I find already exist within the shapeless block of clay. Everything is already present in the material—I simply listen and follow its spaces.
Within the broader landscape of contemporary Italian ceramics, a more conceptual and system-based approach emerges in the work of Vincenzo D’Alba, where drawing and structure inform ceramic design as a form of research.
Is there a piece you feel particularly connected to, and what is its story?
The piece I feel most connected to is La Signora Wang. It was the first piece in the Vasiumani (Humanvases) series and also the only one to which I gave a name. It was born in a completely unexpected way, following the desire to give life to an anthropomorphic form with which I could establish an empathetic relationship.
Vasiumani (Humanvases) is a series I created in 2024, inspired by votive figurines and by a thought that struck me one morning while shaping a vase: in the end, vases exist to create space—you build the vessel because you need the void inside.
A few days later, I happened to come across this sentence by Georges Braque:“The vase gives form to emptiness, and music to silence.”
What does creating in small batches or limited editions mean to you?
For me, it is the only way to create authentically, dedicating attention and care to every detail. All my works are unique, and this has immense value for me.
It is important to me that they are art objects that cannot be repeated identically. This is a clear position in relation to the unbalanced production system we live in today, which often forgets the value of authenticity and the uniqueness of the artistic gesture.
How would you like your work to be perceived by those who welcome it into their homes?
I imagine my works being placed in a dedicated space, where they can inhabit a small corner for reflection, contemplation, or even simple aesthetic enjoyment.
I like to think of them inside a home where everything around them moves and changes, while they remain still—holding the firmness of a captured thought, a momentary intuition that has become eternal.
Inutili Vasi – Il Faro (Useless Vases - The Lighthouse) and Inutili Vasi – Zimbório (Useless Vases- Zimbório)
How has your aesthetic research evolved over time?
One principle has always characterised my work with ceramics: the absence of a predefined project. I know this may seem unusual, and at times naïve, but this is how I encountered my aesthetic—by allowing myself complete freedom during the act of creation.
From the initial block of clay to the decorative details, I have never followed a fixed plan. I have always found the best solutions by acting within a continuous dialogue with the material.
Biography
Anna Resmini (b. 1986) is an Italian artist living between Milan and Lisbon. She holds a degree in Art History and specialised in Aesthetic Philosophy at the University of Milan, before continuing her studies in illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Since 2013, she has worked internationally as an illustrator, collaborating with Corriere della Sera, Interni Magazine, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Courrier International. Her practice explores the dialogue between digital and analogue languages and the search for simple visual solutions to communicate complex ideas.
She encountered ceramics in 2014 and has since devoted herself to handmade ceramic sculpture and contemporary Italian ceramics, creating unique works that explore form, space, and material presence.
Explore the collection
A curated selection of works by Anna Resmini is available through Avant Craft, presented in dialogue with the research documented in this Journal entry. Explore the collection
