"Cresting Currents" Sculpture

Amelia Johannsen is a ceramic artist whose work explores the forces that shape the natural world—erosion, pressure, fracture, and flow. Originally from Portland, Oregon, and based in Barcelona since 2005, her practice is deeply informed by the wild landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and the Mediterranean coastline she now calls home. Working primarily in stoneware, Amelia creates sculptural vessels and ceramic forms that feel geological and weathered, as if shaped by time and elemental forces. Her surfaces are built through layers of texture, raw clay, oxides, and natural processes that allow the material itself to guide the final form. The resulting works sit somewhere between sculpture and artifact—objects that evoke erosion, sediment, and the quiet transformation of the earth. Amelia’s relationship with clay began early, growing up surrounded by forests, rivers, and coastline in the Pacific Northwest. Those landscapes fostered both her creative curiosity and her deep commitment to sustainability—values that continue to shape her studio practice today. After studying Communications at the University of California and pursuing a more traditional professional path, Amelia returned fully to her artistic calling in 2018. Since then, her ceramics, mosaics, and mixed-media works have been exhibited in the United States and Spain and featured in international publications. Today, her work centers on an evolving exploration of clay as landscape—where breaking, layering, and transformation become part of the creative process itself.