Gema Ossenbach: Forty Years at the Wheel
Costa Rica has one of the oldest pre-Columbian ceramic traditions in the Americas. Pottery was being made in the northwest of the country — in what is now Guanacaste — as far back as 2000 BCE, and the polychrome ceramics of the Chorotega people became significant objects of trade across Mesoamerica and South America.
That tradition persists today most visibly in Guaitil, a small Chorotega village in Guanacaste where families have continued making pottery for generations, known for their polychrome work — bold geometric forms painted in red, black and white.
The more time we spend with Costa Rica's artists and exhibitions, the more that history becomes visible to us — in the materials people choose, in the way they talk about the land. Which is what brought us, one afternoon last month, to visit Gema Ossenbach — one of Costa Rica's most accomplished ceramic artists — at her studio in Tres Ríos, on the slopes above Cartago.
Gema Ossenbach arrived in Costa Rica from Spain forty years ago and has been making ceramics here ever since. Her studio in Tres Ríos, is a professional workshop. Gema sources and processes her own clay in-house, and when we visited, she took time to walk us through each stage of the process. Raw clay is mixed with water and left to settle in large tanks, the water is then extracted through an industrial filter press, leaving slabs of workable clay that are pugged into a consistent body ready for throwing.
We were struck by the smell of the raw clay. Gema encouraged us to handle it — to feel the weight and texture before it becomes anything. She was a warm and generous host, and exceptionally technical.
Belinda Seppings and Gema Ossenbach in the studio
The studio is a working environment, but it is also deeply personal, and beautiful — shelves covering every surface, hundreds of finished pieces in glazes running from deep indigo and warm terracotta to muted sage and ash grey, the jungle pressing in on all sides through the wire fencing. Ceramic pendant lamps hang from the ceiling above the workbench.
One section functions as a shop, with shelves of finished work spanning an enormous range — from sinks and large outdoor pots to candleholders, bowls, mugs and sculptural pieces. Beyond it, the studio proper: a production space housing the clay-processing machinery, and a further room of shelves where finished pieces sit alongside work that is mid-process, waiting for glaze. Gema has two kilns — one is new (electric) and state of the art, the other considerably older (gas). Both are in use and the contrast between them was as striking as anything else in the studio.
Costa Rica's natural world runs through Gema's practice — what she calls organic ceramics, drawing from the biology and zoology of the country she has lived in for forty years. Stingrays, sharks and starfish appear throughout, alongside anteaters, turtles and tropical fish — in wall-hung pieces, in the surfaces of large outdoor vessels — with an unexpected playfulness.
Her more abstract pieces have the same quality. Terracotta and deep grey, organic curves, surfaces that could have come from the seabed or the forest floor. We admired a tall grey vessel with hollowed apertures that referenced figuration, and a terracotta planter carrying pale glaze down its sides in long, deliberate drips. The pieces are unmistakably hers.
We look forward to following her work closely!
Gema Ossenbach’s work is collected internationally and can be found in private collections and hospitality venues across Costa Rica and beyond. Commissioned work is available.
For more information, contact Belinda Seppings at MÍRAME or contact Gema Ossenbach directly: Gema Ossenbach website | Instagram
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