Of wild hearts, clever minds and the joy of experimentation.
Cordelia Lehmann-Reinthaller
A brain made of ceramic. A thinker with conviction. A grandmother with a wild heart. And somewhere there is also a screw loose. Or perhaps not.
Cordelia Lehmann-Reinthaller takes the liberty of looking at things in her own way. Her current works from 2025 and 2026 move between ceramics and paper, between figuration and abstraction, seriousness and subtle humour.
Nine sculptures and six works on paper offer insights into an artistic world in which thoughts take shape, memories become colour compositions and familiar forms take surprising turns.
Ceramics. When fire becomes a co-creator.
Clay can be shaped, pressed, bent and modelled. But in the kiln at the latest, the material develops a dynamic of its own.
Lehmann-Reinthaller works with this tension between deliberate design and unpredictable material reactions. Especially in her works using the Japanese raku technique, expressive surfaces, idiosyncratic proportions and unusual colour effects emerge.
A brain becomes a rugged landscape of thought (The Brain), a psychiatrist an enigmatic counterpart (The Psychiatrist) and a thinker a ceramic homage to Hannah Arendt.
The sculpture The Thinker, created in 2025, commemorates the philosopher on the 50th anniversary of her death. A timely reference to independent thinking, reflection and personal responsibility.
And then there is No Screw Loose. A title that invites a smile as much as reflection.
Paper. When lines tell stories.
On paper, the artist does not necessarily become quieter – but different.
Using oil, ink, coloured pencil and gold leaf, she develops compositions between expressive gesture and geometric order. What becomes physical and spatial in clay shifts here to the interplay of colour, line and sign.
The Wild Heart of the GrandMother unfolds a spirited web of red, yellow and dynamic movement. Turned Towards Each Other relies on geometric structures, strong contrasts and golden accents.
In Signs of Remembrance, Symmetries and Thistle, organic echoes meet abstract forms. At times a clear order prevails, at others it seems to dissolve again.
This is about more than formal experimentation. Relationships, memories and the question of how we perceive our environment resonate in the works.
People. Nature. Thought. Transformation.
People
Identity, relationships, memory and consciousness
Nature
Organic forms, growth, change and transience
Thought
Reflection, philosophy and engagement with our present
Transformation
Ruptures, tensions and new connections – visible in material, form and artistic expression
Four themes, one development.
Four themes run through the works as connecting points of reference.
Transformation becomes particularly tangible in Bending. A golden line runs through the ceramic form, recalling the Japanese kintsugi tradition, in which fractures are not hidden but deliberately emphasised.
Not fixed cycles of work, but different perspectives on a coherent artistic development.
Tradition meets the present.
With manufactories such as Augarten and Gmundner Keramik, Austria has a vibrant ceramic tradition. Yet contemporary ceramics have long been more than fine craftsmanship or decorative objects.
Lehmann-Reinthaller’s sculptures assert themselves as independent works of art. They claim space, change their effect with the angle of view and enter into a relationship with their surroundings.
Her long-standing engagement with raku and the joint Japan activities with BURN-IN also open up an intercultural dialogue between material, aesthetics and artistic interpretation.
Art that shapes spaces and opens conversations. Whether in private collections, companies or public spaces – ceramic works can convey identity, set cultural accents and open up new perspectives.
And the works on paper? They broaden the artistic spectrum without having to compete with the ceramics.
Two media, then. And an artist who refuses to be pinned down to just one.
Die neuen Werke
Discover the new works.
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