Techniques

Tantri Mustika hand-builds in coloured stoneware in her studio in Carnegie, Melbourne. She has learned four techniques over her career, one at a time, and most new work uses two or more of them.

Ukiran
Carving. The technique where Tantri began looking at her Balinese heritage, in flowers and flames cut by hand into stoneware.
Marmoreal
Marbling. Strips of marbled clay over full, curving forms, and the work where she grew confident with marbled clay as a surface.
Nerikomi
Layering. The Japanese technique that changed how Tantri marbles clay, with coloured clays stacked and sliced so the pattern runs right through.
Terrazzo
Inlay. Fragments of coloured clay set through each slab, where Tantri’s fascination with making clay look like stone began.

Life Cycle Vessel by Tantri Mustika — Life Cycle Vessel

How they come together

Each technique took years of tests and clumsy first pieces before it felt sure. Now Tantri reaches for whichever ones a piece needs. The Life Cycle Vessel is carved, set with checks of marbled clay and finished with gold spirals. The Panas vessel, made for Melbourne Design Week 2026, is a red-hot nerikomi blend under gold-lustred flames. The thread through most of it is marbled, coloured clay, which she has kept since terrazzo.

“A signature style isn’t necessarily something you decide on in advance. Sometimes it becomes visible only after you’ve made enough work to look back and recognise what you keep returning to.”
Tantri Mustika