Brigitte Saugstad

Austrian ceramic sculptor Brigitte Saugstad creates hand-built stoneware sculptures about movement, ornament and transformation.

The circular forms in her work come from her early years as a competitive figure skater: rotation, momentum, the trace a body leaves in space.

“Even then, on the ice, I felt like both an artist and an athlete. When I model clay, what I feel and what comes into being are one and the same. I could never work like a sculptor carving stone or wood. There, form emerges through the removal of material, through resistance rather than movement. With clay, I can express what already exists within my body.”

Her artistic language was also shaped by the Viennese tradition of ceramics and Jugendstil, and by long stays in India. She does not quote these traditions. Her work moves through them toward a freer, more personal sculptural vocabulary.

She builds by hand in stoneware and works with experimental firings, including Raku. Her forms hold fullness and lightness, discipline and spontaneity. Surface, colour and texture emerge between her hands, gravity and fire.

Her best-known works are her Ganesha and Hanuman figures. They are not devotional objects but contemporary sculptures in which ornament, gesture and mat...

University of Applied Arts Vienna, Ceramics and Design (Prof. Matteo Thun), Diploma 1989
Vienna Porcelain Manufactory Augarten, Porcelain Painting, 1989–1990
College of Art, New Delhi, India
Belvedere, Vienna, Conservation Department (volunteer), and studies in Art History

Awards & Recognition

2025 / 2023 / 2017
Adolf Peschek Audience Award, City Museum St. Pölten, Austria (for Acquisition of Joy, UP and Lord of Dance)

2015
Balance is Everything — 3rd Prize, Leonardo Award for Sculpture, Chianciano Biennale, Italy

2015
ViennaBLOOM — Special Mention of Excellence, London Art Biennale, United Kingdom

2014
Eisprinzessin Hoppala — Premio de Marchi for Sculpture, Bologna, Italy

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2026 / 2024 / 2022 / 2011
ViennaBLOOM RISE, Let's dance!, Ganesha, Ice Princess — recurring solo presentations at Hartmann Wien, Vienna, Austria

2023
ViennaBLOOM, Österreichische Werkstätten, Vienna, Austria

2022
(Un)MÖGLICHES, Galerie Lieglweg, Neulengbach, Austria

2011
Rooted & Blooming, Park Heldenberg, Lower Austria

2011
Ice Princess, Galerie Studio 18, Vienna, Austria

Selected Group Exhibitions & Art Fairs

2026
auf BLÄTTERN – Positions on the Artist's Book, KUNST/WERK St. Pölten, Austria

2026
WIR FEIERN UNS! 80th Anniversary Exhibition of the Künstlerbund St. Pölten, City Museum St. Pölten, Austria

2026
FLORA bringt Blumen, KUNST/WERK St. Pölten, Austria (also co-curator)

2026
International Cultural Sahasrara Festival, Cabella Ligure, Italy

2026
haupt.werk | haupt.stadt, KU...