About

My name is Evgeniya Kutergina, a.k.a Kutega. My pottery practice is in Singapore.

I first tried pottery in 2021, a single trial class. Something stayed with me. In 2023 I came back to it properly, and it quickly became something I couldn't put down. I've been throwing at 3Arts Singapore ever since.

The wheel is where most of the work happens. A form goes taller than expected. A wall collapses and becomes something else. I sit down and 90% of the time I have no clear idea what I'm making. In the remaining 10%, I do, and it never turns out that way. For a long time I thought this was a problem. Now I think it's the point. I don't force it. The process is meditative more than anything else. I'm learning to listen to the clay rather than impose on it, and what comes out still surprises me.

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I am inspired by biomimetic concepts, and this shows up in the work: shapes and surfaces that look like they came from somewhere else, forms that echo bone, bark, coral, stone. No glaze, or glaze that looks like it grew there. Rough where it wants to be rough. I don't smooth things that don't need smoothing. These pieces can look like they were pulled from the bottom of a shipwreck.

What I make tends toward statement pieces and vessels, not everyday ware. They ask to be looked at, and they often reward it: see them in morning light and again in the evening, and they won't look quite the same twice. You'll notice something you hadn't before. A shadow. A mark. A surface that catches differently.

I've taken the process further through woodfiring, Peter Seabridge's kiln in Tokoname, Japan in 2025, and GAYA Ceramic Art Center in Bali with ceramicist John Dix in February 2026. The ash from a woodfire lands on the surface and melts into it, leaving colours and textures that were never applied by hand. The flame marks what it decides to mark. Those pieces carry that. But the same instinct runs through everything I make: I want the process to leave a trace.

I don't know what the next piece will look like. That's still the part I find most interesting.

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To enquire about a piece, DM @kutega_craft on Instagram or email kutega.art@gmail.com.