Some artists shape the world with noise. Others, like Ellis Monteiro, choose to whisper.
Her hands don’t just mold clay — they listen to it, feel its ancestral memory, and guide
it with a reverence that borders on ritual. Like someone setting a picnic table along the
Seine on a soft Parisian afternoon, Ellis arranges the invisible into visible form, inviting
both sight and touch to a feast of subtle sensations.
Her ceramics murmur stories in soft matte white. They embody the idea of a “Shell” —
both metaphor and matter — preserving the human gesture, the rhythm of waiting,
the beauty of the unrepeatable. Delicate to the eye, but strong at their core, they’re
thin membranes that protect, divide, and hold space. Amorphous, one of a kind, with
intuitive, irregular shapes, they adapt to what they carry, revealing pieces of what lies
within while offering a part of themselves to the other. At once timely and timeless,
they are both vessels and guardians, celebrating the kind of beauty that, like in nature,
lives in imperfect singularity.
Using the ancient pinch pot technique, Ellis sculpts each form with her fingertips — a
meditative process where control gives way to deep listening. Each piece is an
intimate, silent, and intuitive conversation between the artist and the earth. No molds,
no sketches — just full presence in the act of creation. No embellishment — just
essence. Her palette is minimal: light or dark clay, bathed in a soft, chalky white, like
the morning mist drifting through a French landscape, wrapping everything essential
in quiet.