Ur Motela - Limited Edition

 

A collaboration between Cécile Mestelan, ceramic artist, and Benjamin Artola, painter.
Ur Motela is a limited edition of pieces created between Portugal and the Basque Country, exploring the theme of slow water.

Variations in size, glaze, and texture are the natural imprints of the making process. This collection of domestic objects : vases, cups, ollas, and water dribblers, shares a common thread: a conscious and respectful use of water.

A sack of clay, shaped by hand and on the potter’s wheel, takes form under the artisan’s precise gestures. The engobes, applied one by one in small vignettes, trace a circle of life, reflecting the transformations and mutations shaped by water.

Water carries the cycle of life; transformation, death, and rebirth, nourishing every emergence. Ur Motela is an invitation to slow down, to observe water following its own rhythm.

Each object embodies this essential idea of slow water, encouraging us to synchronize with nature’s cycles.

Nothing is lost, everything is given, everything is absorbed.

 

 

 

Meet the artist of the collaboration

Instagram > @benjaminartola

Benjamin Artola is a Basque multidisciplinary artist.

His work is largely inspired by everyday life and the natural environment to which he was introduced from an early age.

He worked for a decade on numerous projects (music, cinema, events, etc.) as an artistic director while teaching for 8 years at an art school. Today, he focuses primarily on his personal creations at home in the Basque Country.

He stands out by establishing the foundations of a poetic world composed of his pagan culture and an increasingly complex globalized culture.

"Through painting or with words, I try to capture mirages, reminiscences. Dreams are like sand, an elusive material that, when you grasp it, always slips away. The horizon of the ocean often serves as a neutral ground to project visions. To convey complex feelings, life experiences, humanity is not always required to be represented."

For Ur motela, "slow water" in Euskara (Basque language), he paints each piece individually with engobe, representing motifs linked to childhood, which, when put together, create life cycles.

Photo ©Ignacio Barrios Martinez

Bizi zikloa, 150 x 100 cm, Vinyl painting