Layering

Nerikomi

Q: What is nerikomi?

Nerikomi is a Japanese technique of layering and slicing coloured clays, so the pattern runs right through the body of a piece. Clays stained in different colours are stacked, folded or rolled together into a block, then cut into slices. Each slice carries the pattern through its full thickness, and the slices are joined to build the piece.

Nerikomi is a Japanese technique of layering and slicing coloured clays, so the pattern runs right through the body of a piece.

What is nerikomi?

Clays stained in different colours are stacked, folded or rolled together into a block, then cut into slices. Each slice carries the pattern through its full thickness, and the slices are joined to build the piece.

Neriage is its close relative. It uses the same coloured clays, but throws them on the potter’s wheel, and the turning swirls the pattern. Nerikomi is built by hand, so the pattern can be planned, in stripes or checks.

Slices of striped clay, in Tantri Mustika’s studio — Slices of striped clay

Striped octagonal nerikomi vase, FOND, 2022, by Tantri Mustika — Striped octagonal nerikomi vase, FOND, 2022

How it started

Her first tests were made from offcuts of coloured clay, and came out a little muted and clumsy. The pieces that showed her there was more in it were a pair of vases for FOND in 2022: a checkered vice versa vase and a striped octagonal one.

How the pieces are made

Tantri builds her nerikomi by hand from slabs, and the flat-faced forms nod back to her earlier slab-built mountain vases. The stripes and checks come in contrasting colours, often odd pairings; the stronger the contrast, the more interesting the finish. She sums up the look as “more is more pattern on pattern type of feels.”

“What I like most about the Nerikomi patterning is that the pattern becomes a little skewed as you work with the clay so it’s like perfectly imperfect in a way.”
Tantri Mustika

Nerikomi vase with gold lustre spirals, by Tantri Mustika — Nerikomi vase with gold lustre spirals

Panas Vessel by Tantri Mustika, Superhot Shop, Melbourne Design Week 2026 — Panas Vessel, 2026

Nerikomi now

Tantri has taught a lot of nerikomi workshops, and the technique changed how she marbles clay. The striped, onyx-like marbling in her later work owes a lot to it. Among the pieces she points to from this period are the maroon and beige vessels. Nerikomi is now one of the techniques she mixes with the others. For the Panas vessel, shown at Melbourne Design Week 2026, she blended hand-stained clays into a red-hot nerikomi and ran gold lustre flames over it.