Cătălin Filip Held by Gravity

Cătălin Filip is an artist and designer who shapes clay with an architect’s eye and a sculptor’s instinct. Entirely self-taught, his ceramic work embraces experimentation over precision, favoring organic movement, distortion, and the raw elegance of imperfection. Guided by nature and the quiet force of gravity, his pieces exist on the edge of collapse—quietly radical, undeniably alive.

Tell us who is Catalin Filip and what do you like to do?

I’m a Romanian-born, UK-based artist and designer, and I work primarily with ceramics. I am self-taught and my process is quite intuitive and experimental. I develop techniques largely through trial and error, which gives me a lot of freedom to discover new forms and textures. My work is very much influenced by the natural world—the organic movements, the distortions, the imperfections you find in nature. I’m trained as an architect, so there’s always this pull between practicality and expression in what I create. Over the past year, I’ve had the chance to exhibit in the UK, the Netherlands, Romania, Greece, and Mexico, which has been an incredible way to connect with different audiences and contexts.

What is your favorite restaurant or bar in your hometown ?

I live in St Leonards-on-Sea, a small, vibrant town on the south coast of England. There’s a good mix of bars and restaurants, one of my favourites is Collected Fictions, which has a nice selection of craft wines.

Tell us about your making process, Is your process more intuitive or planned? Do you start with a clear idea, or does the shape evolve as you work?

I usually start with a clear idea in my head of what I want to make, and I try to translate that into form through rough hand sketches. For more complex shapes, I’ll make small clay models to better understand the geometry. But I never measure things or work to a specific scale—so in that sense, the whole process stays quite intuitive.

What is a specific moment in nature that inspired one of your pieces?

I spend a lot of time in nature and draw inspiration from what I come across, especially the movement, distortions, and forms shaped by the elements. One example is Movement Phase, which was inspired by a tree I saw growing at the edge of a rock wall. Under its own weight, part of it folded over the cliffside, almost as if it were melting. What I liked about it was the dynamic element, as if it was still dripping. That sense of motion is something I’m also interested in capturing in my work.

What materials do you gravitate toward, and how do they influence the final form.

I tend to gravitate towards clay and ceramics because of how malleable the material is in its raw form, and how it responds to external forces like gravity. I enjoy bending, pulling, and stretching the clay, and I’m really interested in capturing and retaining these shapes, preserving the fluidity of the material even once it’s become more stone-like in its finished form.

How do you balance abstraction and representation in your work?

I think the balance between abstraction and representation comes naturally in my work. I start with inspiration from nature, but I’m not interested in replicating it, instead, I focus on capturing the essence or feeling of what I see. The abstract elements come in as I apply things like distortions to familiar forms, such as vessels.

What role does imperfection or irregularity play in your forms?

Imperfection is integral to my work, especially in the textures and finishes. I embrace the natural qualities of the material—its unpredictability and roughness—which contrast with the sleek, organic forms I create. This interplay between the raw and the refined gives my pieces a balance of contemporary edge and timelessness, something that feels both of this moment and yet enduring.

What is the role of gravity in your work or the role of the materials per se, a few of them look like they are melting.

I’m fascinated by how materials, especially clay, respond to gravity, whether it's being stretched, pulled, or just left to settle naturally. Clay, in particular, is incredibly malleable when moist, and I love pushing its boundaries. Gravity plays a key role in pieces like the Melo Lamps, where I fold a clay tube over a suspended rod, letting gravity shape the form. Similarly, in the Rakis Floor Lamp, the clay rings start to distort under their own weight as the piece grows taller, almost collapsing before I force-dry it to lock in that deformed shape. It’s a process of pushing the material to its limits, then capturing that moment of tension.

Has your relationship with nature changed since you started creating work around it?

I still appreciate nature in the same way I always have—it’s a space where I can disconnect and be fully present. I find a lot of inspiration in the natural world, but it often comes in a more subconscious way. I might encounter something—a tree’s twisted form, the movement of water, the way light hits a surface—and it stays with me, almost like a feeling or a memory. Over time, it turns into an idea, and that’s when I start shaping it into a form. So, in a way, my connection to nature has deepened because I’m constantly seeing it through a creative lens, though the initial appreciation hasn’t changed.

Are there any artists or thinkers that influence the way you approach nature and form?

I’ve always connected with Brancusi’s work—especially the way he translated traditional references into something refined and timeless. That balance between simplicity and depth really speaks to me. I also appreciate Andy Goldsworthy’s approach to nature and the way his work responds to time and change. There’s a quiet sensitivity in how he interacts with the landscape that I find inspiring, even if my own process is quite different.

Our upcoming issue is about Re-Birth. How do you see the idea of rebirth reflected in those natural processes?

Rebirth in nature is constant, things grow, break down, adapt, and take new forms. I’m drawn to that sense of ongoing transformation, where decay isn’t an end but part of a cycle. In my work, I try to capture that fluidity. Clay itself is a material in constant transition—soft and responsive at first, then fixed by fire. Often, the forms I create carry traces of collapse or distortion, almost like a memory of what they were before. That layering and evolution is, to me, a quiet kind of rebirth.

How do you experience your own sense of rebirth through the act of creating?

For me, rebirth isn’t a big shift, it’s slow, subtle. The more I make, the more my thinking and approach evolve, often without me realizing until I look back. It’s a quiet kind of transformation that comes through doing the work, through repetition, failure, and moments of unexpected clarity. I think working with a material like clay, which constantly changes state, mirrors that process. There’s always something shifting, softening, or setting—both in the material and in myself.

Are there any moments in your creative journey where you had to “begin again”, and how did that shift influence your work?

Definitely. Leaving architecture to focus fully on ceramics and design was a major shift—professionally and personally. It felt like starting over in many ways, especially since I didn’t come through a traditional ceramics background. But that shift gave me the freedom to develop my own way of working, without the constraints of how things should be done. I think that outsider perspective has shaped the experimental side of my practice. It pushed me to trust intuition over method, and to see starting again not as a setback, but as a chance to work more honestly.