Rose de Heer is a San Francisco-based ceramicist and designer. She creates unusual ceramic pieces that reflect a lifelong curiosity about the interplay between ancient and modern aesthetic traditions. Drawing from her experience as a painter and graphic designer, she defines areas of her pieces by inscribing patterns or creating texture with color and form. Her most vividly expressive objects combine an organic, handmade quality with meticulous repetitions of her painted motifs. Each piece is a tribute to the intrinsic value in the slow labor of its construction.
The graphic language of Rose de Heer’s pottery emerges from her affinity for folk art, contemporary design, and the natural geometry of marine organisms. Born in Carmel and raised in Honolulu, she spent her childhood exploring reefs and shoals brimming with urchins, crabs, limpets, and schooling fish. The biodiversity of the ocean remains a constant source of inspiration. In her travels she later became enraptured with traditional Mexican art and the Aboriginal dot paintings of Western Australia. An homage to her father’s Japanese ancestry is also apparent in her synchronous celebration of minimalism and minute detail. The artifacts she produces are the culmination of years of reverence for her heritage, indigenous folk arts, and the beauty of the coastal environments that so deeply marked her upbringing.
