Janice Jakielski marries modern industrial technology with historic ceramic forms to create beautiful objects that provide a moment of pause in an overwhelming world. Jakielski uses industrial casting methods to create paper-thin sheets of porcelain that she layers to reimagine historic vessels from Europe and Asia. She reinvents these vessels without their interior volume, flattening them into outlines of their previous forms. By removing their function and recreating these vessels in impossibly thin porcelain, Jakielski encourages the viewer to stop and take a closer look.

Like the Sèvres porcelain factory in its day, Jakielski is at the forefront of technical and artistic innovation. In 18th-century France, innovation meant finally being able to make porcelain vessels – Europe lagged far behind China in understanding this technology – and recreating famous European paintings on those porcelain surfaces. For Jakielski, it means adapting industrial methods used to make computer components to create a type of porcelain clay body that behaves like no other and taking inspiration from multiple craft disciplines to achieve her final forms. Where the makers at Sèvres drew inspiration from painting, Jakielski uses skills more often employed with fiber and paper crafts like embroidery and paper filigree to complete her designs.