Marbling

Marmoreal

Marmoreal is Tantri Mustika’s marbled-clay work. She covers hand-built vessels in strips of marbled clay, laid in checks and stripes over full, curving forms, and named the work for what it is: “kind of like a false marble, or a marble imitation of sorts.”

How it started

It grew out of the terrazzo. Tantri was already marbling coloured clay for her terrazzo pieces and inlaying it into flat slabs. Her forms were getting rounder, drawn from ancient pots, and those were hard to inlay. So she started attaching strips of marbled clay on top instead, in rows like Japanese tiles. Those first pieces were the Striated vessels.

“I remember just feeling excited that I could apply something I was already using in a completely different way of working.”
Tantri Mustika

Marmoreal Striated Vase by Tantri Mustika — Marmoreal Striated Vase

Striated vessel in blush and copper, Marmoreal, by Tantri Mustika — Striated vessel in blush and copper

How the pieces are made

Every strip is cut and placed by hand. The patterns are strict and the forms underneath are not, so the grids and stripes bend and move with the body of the piece. Glossy marbled clay sits against matte raw clay, with touches of gold. The first piece was clumsy, and plenty of the strips fell off. Then the patterns got too tidy, and she had to loosen them up again.

“It was a bit like I was using strict patterns on lively forms and the contrast of those two things worked well together.”
Tantri Mustika

Slower work

Terrazzo was made in production runs. Marmoreal went the other way: fewer, larger pieces, each taking days or weeks. It was also Tantri’s first real step away from terrazzo, and keeping the marbled clay was what made the change feel allowed. The pieces she points to are the Striated Vase, the checkered Marmoreal works and the block-marbled vases, made from a single colour of marbled clay.

Pieces from the collection were shown in Making Space, with Ella Reweti, at NGV Melbourne Design Week 2023.

“I think I was feeling trapped in the cycles of production style making that I just wanted to have works I could get lost in and take days or weeks at a time to complete.”
Tantri Mustika

Making Space, with Ella Reweti, NGV Melbourne Design Week 2023, Marmoreal, by Tantri Mustika — Making Space, with Ella Reweti, NGV Melbourne Design Week 2023

Marmoreal Checkered Vase by Tantri Mustika — Marmoreal Checkered Vase

Marmoreal now

Marmoreal is where Tantri got confident with marbled clay as a surface. Stripes and checks are added where she feels a piece needs them, including the marbled and checkered grounds she carves into in her Ukiran work.

“The clearest through line in my work is highly marbled, striped clay. The more layered, striated and onyx-like it becomes, the more excited I am by it.”
Tantri Mustika