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Julia Nema is a fine artist, porcelain and ceramic designer based in Budapest, Hungary, recognized with major national prizes like the Hungarian Design Award (2003) and Ferenczy Noémi Award (2013). Her oeuvre is characterized by a unique harmony of fine arts, design and handicrafts. Ms Nema is the founder of one of the leading ceramics studios in Hungary which is the first and only venture in the country using a high-temperature wood-fired kiln for professional creation of artworks and functional ware.

The artistic credo of Julia Nema has been shaped by constructivism and minimal art, Far Eastern aesthetics, European design and local ceramic traditions, creating bridges between East and West. Her masters include painter and sculptor János Fajó (1937–2018), and Frederick L. Olsen ceramic artist and kiln designer (USA).

Works by Julia Nema can be found in the collections of the Museum of Applied Arts Budapest, the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts and the International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemét.

Major recent solo exhibitions include: "liquid earth" (integrated into Veszprém-Balaton European Capital of Culture 2023); "Immersion" (Apollo Gallery Budapest, 2024-25); "stone bath" (Balatonfüred, 2025). Julia Nema played a crucial role as curator and exhibitor in "Ways of Earth", an extensive collaboration between artists in Japan and Hungary (2022-2024).

As a designer and maker, Julia Nema is committed to sustainable thinking, local materials and renewable energy. She is continuously researching and collecting wild clays, mineral rocks, stones and sands which she incorporates into ceramic glazes, paintings and paper works. Due to her organic, laborious craftmanship and personal presence throughout the creative process, everything she produces possesses a unique, authentic character.

With her ground-breaking bespoke tableware sets, Julia Nema has renewed the ways of plating and serving in contemporary Hungarian gastronomy. Besides private commissions, her extensive client roster includes Michelin-starred restaurants SALT Budapest, 42 Restaurant and Babel Budapest (2016–2020), as well as Botaniq Castle of Tura and Salon, formerly the fine dining venue of the New York Palace Budapest, and many more. Her plates offer a deeper experience of daily rites, living, community and hospitality.

Julia Nema is the author of a monograph about wood-fired ceramics ("Fired Up High", 2013), a pioneering publication on the subject in Hungarian. Her works, encompassing sculpture, reliefs, everyday objects, paintings, silkscreen prints and photograms, have been widely exhibited from America through Europe and Japan. She is a regular participant in conferences and symposia worldwide, and has published in international periodicals. Julia Nema earned her doctorate degree (PhD/DLA) in 2012, and has well over a decade’s teaching experience in higher education at various universities.