9 June 2026

Artist Highlight - Ryan Tepper

Interview and Review

Ryan is a California born - London based ceramic artist exploring the intersection of digital fabrication and ceramic craft. He creates modular, tactile clay landscapes that champion the maker’s hand and invite play. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and has previously worked at Ford, Tesla, and Google. In 2008 he started throwing stoneware vessels and since has travelled around the world to participate in various throwing workshops. In 2024 he decided to leave his engineering career to pursue an MA in Ceramics and Glass at the Royal College of Art supported by The Deputy Vice-Chancellor’s International Scholarship.

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

1. Phygital Landscapes of My Youth translates personal memories of California into abstract ceramic terrain. How do you approach transforming landscape memory into sculptural form?

I approach this transformation by placing myself on these terrains: hiking up them, snowboarding down. I imagine what it would be like if I were shrunken down and placed on the mountains. Rather than creating literal replicas, I focus on capturing the feeling of the landscape through undulating surfaces and winding paths. The process begins in the digital realm, sculpting these abstracted memories, which are then brought into physical reality through 3D printing and press-molding clay. This creates a "phygital" terrain where the warmth of my personal history meets the precision of modern design tools.

2. The hand-drawn grid overlays the ceramic surface as a trace of the object’s digital conception. What role does this visual record play in communicating the dialogue between screen and studio?

The hand-drawn grid acts as a vital bridge between the digital and the physical. On the computer, forms are defined by wireframe meshes. By sketching this mesh onto the ceramic surface by hand, I create a "ghost" of the object's digital origins. It leaves a permanent visual record of the exchange between the screen and the studio. More importantly, drawing it by hand introduces human imperfection and warmth, highlighting the intimacy and tension between the precision of software and the maker's touch.

3. The work sits between landscape, object, and map. How does this ambiguity influence how viewers engage with the piece?

This ambiguity encourages a highly active engagement. Because it isn't strictly a traditional sculpture or a literal map, viewers cannot passively consume it. They are prompted to "wander" the paths and reflect on their own journey through life. The piece acts as a window into an abstracted, nostalgic terrain. By existing in this liminal space, the work asks viewers to project their own sense of exploration onto the surface, navigating the physical and conceptual topography for themselves.

4. Your background in engineering informs your understanding of technology and fabrication. How does this perspective shape your approach to ceramics?

My background in engineering and understanding of technology gives me a larger toolbox as an artist. It allows me quickly iterate through ideas and know how to succesfully make any form I can think of. With this knowledge comes a level of confidence and an understanding that digital fabrication is not a threat to traditional craft. At the same time, it deepens my appreciation for clay as a material - recording the gestures and hand of the maker - and as a technology in itself; one that is tens of thousands of years old and still serving us today.

MAPPING MEMORY THROUGH HAND AND CODE

Review by Chih-Yang Chen, Art Director

Ryan’s Phygital Landscapes of My Youth sits somewhere between a remembered place and a constructed system. At first glance, the surface reads like terrain, ridges, paths, elevations. But the longer you look, the less it behaves like a real landscape and the more it feels like something rebuilt from fragments of memory. What stands out is how the work avoids direct representation. These are not replicas of California, nor are they purely abstract forms. They hover in between, shaped more by movement than by image. You can sense the act of traversing, climbing, descending, wandering. The landscape is less something to look at and more something that has been experienced and then reassembled. The grid drawn across the surface introduces a second language. It interrupts the illusion of terrain, reminding you that this form originated elsewhere, inside a digital space. But because it is drawn by hand, it doesn’t feel clinical. The lines waver slightly, carrying a softness that resists the rigidity of the software it references. This tension between precision and imperfection becomes central to the work. There is a quiet negotiation happening between control and interpretation. The digital process offers clarity, structure, repeatability. Clay does the opposite. It records pressure, movement, hesitation. By bringing the two together, the work doesn’t resolve the difference. Instead, it lets both coexist, allowing the object to carry traces of each system without privileging one over the other. The ambiguity of the form plays an important role in how it is encountered. It is not immediately clear whether you are looking at a model, a map, or a sculptural object. This uncertainty slows down the viewing process. Rather than recognising, you begin to navigate. The eye follows paths, pauses at edges, moves across the surface as if searching for orientation. What emerges is a subtle shift in scale. At one moment, the work feels vast, like a mountainous landscape. The next, it becomes something intimate, almost handheld. This fluctuation mirrors the way memory operates, expanding and compressing depending on how it is recalled. The term “phygital” risks sounding overly technical, but here it becomes something more grounded. It is not about novelty or technology for its own sake. Instead, it describes a condition where two modes of making overlap, where digital construction and physical touch leave equal marks on the object. Ultimately, the work is less about landscape and more about how we carry places with us. Not as fixed images, but as shifting, partial reconstructions. What Ryan presents is not a location, but a way of remembering, shaped through both the logic of machines and the inconsistencies of the human hand.