Helena Patelisová (*1991)

Designer, ceramist, and artist working primarily with porcelain. Her practice spans figurative porcelain sculpture and functional objects, combining material research with narrative sensitivity. She lives and works in Prague.

Education

2023–present
PhD in Visual Communication
Faculty of Art and Design, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University, Ústí nad Labem (CZ)

Solo Exhibitions

2025
Animal Farm — House of Arts, Ústí nad Labem (CZ)
Animal Farm — High Craft, Designblok, Prague (CZ)

2023
ROOTS — Designblok, Prague (CZ)

2021
Shell-ter — Designblok, Prague (CZ)

Selected Group Exhibitions

2024
Antique Modern Mix — London Design Fair (with Františka Benčatová)
20 Lives — Designblok, Prague (with FAD JEPU Ceramics Studio)

2023–2025
Made by Fire — travelling exhibition (Mascots)

2022
Talking Flowers — Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague (UPSY DAISY)
Terra Alba — Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague (Mascots)

2019
Present & Future — B&C Design Center, Jingdezhen (CN) (Mascots)
QUARZSPRUNG — Bayerischer Kunstgewerbeverein e.V., Munich (DE) (Nemlaskals)

2018
Ceramics and its Dimensions — UMPRUM Museum, Prague (Nemlaskals)
Spring Opening — Mint Gallery, London (Mascots)
Collect Fair — Saatchi Gallery, London (Mascots, with Mint Gallery)

2017
Diploma Selection — Designblok, Prague
Nemlaskals — Designblok, Prague

Residencies & Programmes

2022
International Porcelain Symposium Keep in Touch — Dubí u Teplic (CZ)

2020–2022
Future Lights of Ceramics — Porzellanikon (DE) & MIC Faenza (IT)

2016
International Porcelain Symposium K.I.T.

Awards

2023
CZECHDESIGN Highlights — Lemarket

2017
Diploma Selection, Designblok — 3rd Prize (Mascots)

Publications

2021
Premio Faenza: 61st International Biennial of Contemporary Art Ceramics, p. 269

I work with porcelain as a material shaped by contradiction: fragile yet enduring, ordinary yet historically charged. My practice is grounded in a sustained dialogue with the material — a process in which casting, modelling, firing, air, time, and chance all leave visible traces. Even when forms originate in moulds, each object ultimately emerges through hands-on decisions and subtle deviations.

At the core of my artistic practice is figurative porcelain sculpture. Through animal and human forms, I explore gesture, tension, and humor as a strategy of comic relief — not as a punchline, but as a way to create distance, release, and openness within otherwise loaded material.

These investigations inform my broader approach to form, proportion, and presence.
Alongside figurative work, I create functional porcelain objects — vessels and vases — where use becomes a quiet form of care. In collections such as Roots and Shell-ter, function is understood relationally: how an object is held, inhabited, or kept close, rather than merely used.

Across both figurative and functional work, I seek moments of reverence without monumentality — objects and forms that invite slowing down, focused attention, and an awareness of material, process, and everyday rituals.