Ever since her early childhood, Julia Nema has experienced the Balaton Uplands as a space of freedom, magical nature and playfulness. Preserving this spirit as a mature artist, she found a source and partner in this eventful landscape to create the works presented here.

In recent years, she has been collecting samples from the region's varied rocks, sedimented clays and sands which she melts and turns into glazes in her high temperature wood-fire kiln. In this way, she records a fictional re-enactment of volcanic activity on the surface of her objects, and explores untrodden pathways leading back to the origins of ceramics as an artistic medium.

Julia Nema's ceramic and porcelain artworks, incorporating the mineral heritage of Lake Balaton and the "geological wonderland" to the north of it, were first exhibited in the House of Arts Veszprém, integrated into Veszprém-Balaton European Capital of Culture 2023. Her concept was subsequently extended into a Japanese-Hungarian cooperation which initiated fruitful connections and led to exhibitions in Veszprém and Japan, in the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu.

These sculptural objects, through their elementary geometric forms, possess a powerful symbolism, from spherical "Lithosphere" pieces through "Lens" reminiscent of a lake or basin to brick-shaped "Stele" works. At the same time, they candidly expose the colours, shine and surfaces of glazes melt out of minerals from the volcanic and sedimentary grounds by high temperature fire. This painterly thinking is carried on by Julia Nema in her most recent handmade paper collages and earth paintings. Here she develops the imaging potential of unprocessed, natural earth substances in their soft, cool, wet and raw state.