Jessy Van Durme
Jessy Van Durme is a Belgian multidisciplinary designer whose work spans ceramics, furniture, lighting and interiors. Trained in interior design at the Royal Academy of Arts in Antwerp, she approaches objects with a sensitivity to their material character and the spaces they inhabit. Her practice draws on encounters with craftspeople, an appreciation of nature and an interest in the relationship between function and form. In her ceramics, these concerns take a particularly personal expression: tactile, individually shaped pieces that retain the irregularities of their making, inviting a closer engagement with surface, weight and presence.
THE PROCESS
Jessy’s process develops through observation, exchange and direct engagement with materials. Visits to the workshops of craftspeople offer opportunities to understand their methods, discover the possibilities of a technique and consider how an object might take shape. These encounters inform her drawings, where ideas are refined into forms that give prominence to texture, finish and the qualities of the material itself.
In her own ceramic practice, this approach becomes an intuitive exploration of clay. Her Collection O is handmade in her atelier using locally sourced Belgian clay, with each piece developing through an individual encounter with the material. Working slowly, she allows irregularities to contribute to the character of a vessel. Variations in shape and surface preserve a sense of its making, giving each object a distinct physical presence. Texture and matter guide the work, allowing the final form to emerge through the process.
This attention to material relationships extends into her furniture and lighting. In the Arvin collection, ceramic forms meet woven rattan, oak and brass, bringing contrasting surfaces and methods of construction together. The same sensitivity connects these collaborative designs with her independent ceramics: an interest in how materials feel, how they support a function and how the work of the hand remains legible. Across different scales, her process is grounded in respect for resources and the skill involved in transforming them.
