Nadya Anne Mangion

Nadya Anne Mangion has been working with clay for eighteen years, following thirty years of drawing and painting. Her work focuses on decorative pottery, sculptural forms, and intricate glaze finishes. The Western raku technique is central to her creativity. Using hand-building methods such as coiling and slab techniques, she transforms clay into artefacts that embrace the organic, featuring rough edges, asymmetry, and the fingerprints left by her hands. Raku embodies the perfect combination of the four elements: earth, fire, air, and water, blending her previous scientific background with her artistic instinct.
Mangion experiments with glazes mixed from raw materials, drawing inspiration from the rugged coastline, the sea, and Malta’s cultural heritage. Observation, memory, and imagination combine to explore her artistic creativity.
Since 2011, she has been participating in collective exhibitions both locally and abroad. Her two solo exhibitions, Singularity in 2019 and Pots in 2023, have cemented her place in the local art scene.
The “Seven Sisters” series features hand-built coil vases in raku ceramic clay and finished using various raku techniques. "Taygete" and "Maia" are glazed in yellow and white raku respectively, fired to 1050°C and reduced in shredded paper, resulting in a lace network of dark cracks on their surfaces. "Merope" is highly burnished with cobalt-infused terra sigillata, wrapped in copper wire, saggar fired with seaweed and chemicals, and polished with beeswax for a satin finish. "Asterope" is burnished with micaceous terra sigillata, fired in a high-carbon reduction saggar, and polished with beeswax for a dark satin finish. "Alcyone" and "Electra" feature sea blue and turquoise raku glazes respectively, fired to 1050°C and reduced in shredded paper to create a lace network of dark cracks. "Celaeno" uses a copper oxide fuming technique, sealed in a combustion chamber and reduced in shredded paper, resulting in a matte finish with copper hues. They take their names from the Pleiades, the seven sister-nymphs, companions of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt.