Ceramicist Uses Science To Create Sculptures Inspired By Nature
5 Video Views·Jun 10, 2025
NYC-based artist Sabri Ben-Achour uses the forces of nature, science, and Japanese aesthetics as inspiration to create distinctive ceramics. One of his art styles includes using magnets to manipulate clay into spindly sculptures. Many of his pieces are also coated in an overglaze made of real gold.
The functional pottery that I was taught, you know, as I was growing up had a sort of Japanese
aesthetic to it. There's this term in Japanese called wabi-sabi, which means just a little bit
off, but it's not off in like a mistake way. It's not off in like a that's wrong way. It's
off in an artistic way, in a natural way. I think I try and strive for that too, but in my own way.
I basically use extremely strong magnetic fields by arranging super magnets in a particular
formation. Very powerful, very large super magnets, along with a magnetic clay that I developed.
I get my inspiration from nature, from the zoo, from a hike, from the desert, from a trip.
I see these things, they stick in my mind, and I think how can I find that? How can I make that
happen? Can I create the conditions in the clay, in this material, to replicate that?
I try and unlock what the natural world has to show us. I think that connects with people.
I think people are primed to find beauty in the orderly disorder of nature.