About Althea Ceramics
Tash Katsikas is a ceramicist working on Kaurna Land in South Australia, and the hands behind Althea Ceramics.
Working primarily on the wheel, she creates pieces that move with a quiet sense of freedom — forms that soften, stretch, and settle into themselves. Her practice is guided by the rhythms of the natural world, where control and spontaneity exist in gentle conversation.
Alongside small-batch homewares, Tash creates sculptural vessels that sit between function and form. Her work brings together the symmetry of wheel-thrown pieces with more intuitive, organic gestures — an ongoing exploration of balance, and a slow refining of both.
Each piece is shaped with a sensitivity to material, movement, and time. Subtle shifts, textures, and irregularities are left intact — traces of process that hold the presence of the maker and the moment in which they were formed.
For Tash, ceramics is a way of understanding the world and being present within it. Her work reflects connection — to place, to the process, and to the fleeting, tender nature of a human, being.My Approach
My approach to ceramics is led by intuition — a quiet listening between hand and material.
Clay can resists or surprise, and I tend to follow what unfolds. Control and spontaneity exist side by side here — a gentle negotiation between what is held and what is released.
Ceramics offers a creative pause from my usual work as an ICU nurse. In the studio, time loosens. Creating becomes a way of returning to presence, settling into a slower rhythm where attention rests in small movements and change.
I am drawn to the subtle and often overlooked — quiet details in the natural world, and the fragile, fleeting nature of living things. I intend to try and reflect this in all of my pieces.
Each work is made in small batches, with care for material and the process. Perfection is not the aim; instead, there is a search for a humbled resolution — something settled, yet still alive. Marks and variations remain, holding the trace of time and touch.
My pieces sit between function and sculptural — objects to be used, held, and lived with. Invitations to notice, to slow down, and to return, briefly, to what is already here.