Guy Van Leemput
Guy Van Leemput is a Belgian ceramic artist whose work explores the delicate balance between structure, pattern, light and movement. Born in Herentals in 1967, he originally studied mathematics at the University of Leuven before turning his passion for ceramics into his profession.
Guy is best known for his extraordinarily thin, translucent porcelain bowls, which he creates by hand using flax-reinforced porcelain applied directly onto an inflated balloon. Working slowly and intuitively, he builds intricate patterns from small pieces of porcelain before carefully removing the balloon. The finished bowls are fired upside down on specially designed shrinking supports, allowing gravity, heat and the movement of the firing process to become part of the work.
His fascination with patterns is strongly influenced by mathematics and the structures found in nature. Repetition, rhythm and cellular forms appear throughout his work, while the translucency of the porcelain and subtle effects of wood firing give each piece a sense of lightness and fragility.
Guy studied ceramics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Herentals and has undertaken masterclasses with internationally renowned ceramic artists including Mieke Everaet, Shozo Michikawa and Gustavo Pérez. He has exhibited extensively in Belgium and internationally, including in China, Japan, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK. He has also been an Artist in Residence at the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute in Jingdezhen, China.
His work has received international recognition, including a Bronze Award at the 2014 MINO International Ceramics Competition in Japan, where his piece Big Anas was selected from more than 2,500 entries and is now part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art in Gifu. In 2020, he was featured as an Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly, and he is recognised as a Master Artisan by the Michelangelo Foundation.
Based in Herentals, Belgium, Guy continues to develop his distinctive approach to porcelain, combining the precision of his mathematical background with the intuition and sensitivity of the maker.
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