Johannes Nagel, born in 1979, is a German ceramist who studied ceramics at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle, Germany. His work questions the traditional boundaries of pottery as a "functional, domestic and decorative art" and instead begins with the materiality of clay, exploring the age-old debates between form and function, control and spontaneity, rigor and improvisation, both in terms of form and concept.

Committed to this exploration of the possibilities of the vessel–in its form, function, scale and method of creation, Nagel’s practice is continually deconstructing the historic, traditional, classical and contemporary permutations of the‘vase’.  Not only does he apply painterly swaths of color to his vases, he signs them in prominent and visible places, deliberately moving away from pottery’s tradition of discreet stamps and maker’s marks. 

Rather than closing onto themselves, Nagel’s vessels appear at times to be sliced and cut open at their extremities. In the case of these containers full of holes, the interior competes with and complements the exterior; together they resist the very idea of“containing.”The methodology, both material and theoretical, is informed by twentieth century art, criticism, and theory.