Miha Perne (1978) is an artist who easily jumps between different media – from painting and drawing to fanzines and ceramics, within which he has been dedicating himself to porcelain in recent years. He is one of the more outstanding artists of his generation, who has been exploring and pushing the boundaries between painting and drawing, and design and ceramics for more than twenty years. Miha is actually a painter first and foremost. His art world is full of absurd characters, zombies, unusual faces and humorous twists. He is playful, but at the same time slightly grotesque. The paintings are visual stories in which expressive strokes, wild color combinations and unusual characters that could escape from some comic or surreal story are intertwined. 
When he switched to porcelain, he did not give up this aesthetic - on the contrary, he transferred it to a new material. His porcelain products are like small paintings in three-dimensional form. The lines and strokes that he previously applied to canvas now come to life in fine, fragile forms. He upgraded his painting techniques by experimenting with ceramics, where the precision of the procedures collides with his creative freedom. Others see fragile elegance in porcelain, Miha sees it as a space for play. He is a visual storyteller who has been building his own recognizable universe for many years - a world of absurd characters, comic strip features and humorous grotesque. His paintings are full of unusual figures that live on the border between the real and the fantastic. And it is this very iconography of his painting that has now moved to porcelain. It is as if he has exchanged canvas and brush for ceramic fragments on which equally playful and slightly surreal stories unfold. He is a creator who expresses opposition to utilitarianism and connects artwork with aesthetics without additional political and educational contexts.
When you think of porcelain, you probably imagine your grandmother's cupboard full of delicate cups with floral patterns that you're not even allowed to look at, let alone use. Miha Perne, however, has his own, much more playful and unconventional view of it. For him, porcelain is not just a delicate decoration, but an experiment, a playground and sometimes even a place where zombies, dinosaurs and elderly mermaids meet. In short, somewhere between the sophisticated and slightly grotesque lies his artistic chaos. Despite the colorfulness, it is almost never a classically beautiful, pleasing product. Among the unusual, often bizarre figures, we also find cute creatures that put us in a good mood. Nevertheless, behind the cute characters, deep considerations are usually hidden.
If the Chinese in the 7th century worked wonders with porcelain, hiding it from the world and worshipping it as something divine, Miha prefers to play with the idea that even this sublime material is not immune to a dose of humor. For him, not only elegant dishes are born from the fine white powder, but also fragmented forms and unusual characters that haunt the studio like some kind of ceramic ghosts. To understand how and why Miha Perne fell in love with porcelain, we must first get to know this unique material. Porcelain originates from China, where it began to be developed during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). It is a special type of ceramic that is created by heating a mixture of kaolin (white clay), quartz and feldspar at extremely high temperatures (between 1200 and 1400 °C). This is precisely why porcelain is harder, translucent and extremely fine – it was once called white gold in Europe. It was brought to Europe by the famous traveler Marco Polo, but Europeans were unable to imitate its craftsmanship for a long time. It was not until the beginning of the 18th century that the first European porcelain manufactory was established in Meissen, Germany, which laid the foundation for the further development of porcelain art. Although porcelain has been a symbol of luxury for centuries, it is now used by contemporary artists as an experimental and expressively powerful material – including Miha Perne.
Miha says that he gave himself up to ceramics because at some point painting, and especially the whole scene that surrounds him, slightly resisted him. Basically, he lives a fairly modest life, and his paintings are mostly accessible only to the elite, with whom he has no contact. This abyss has repeatedly led him to question where the point is in all this. His creative space is a studio on Metelkova, where at a certain point he felt cramped and trapped. He felt the need to socialize. Some time ago, he became a co-creator in the anything but boring J uha studio , in an unusual ceramic workshop, a real factory of ideas, whose manager is Bojana Ristevski Mlaker. who also got him excited about porcelain. When she went to Belgrade for two weeks, she lent him the keys to the studio, in which he was supposed to finish painting the products that he had previously made in his home kitchen. The keys to the studio are still in Miha's pocket today. The studio where he creates with porcelain and clay is open to the street and he enjoys watching people stop by the window or enter the space. He enjoys getting some honest feedback from random passersby, ordinary people. He feels like he is studying a new direction again. Porcelain in his hands does not behave like a sublime material, but becomes a canvas for playful images, mini sculptures and unusual characters. His pieces – from miniature porcelain sculptures to brooches and jewellery – carry the same experimental and humorous note. The choice of this medium is not a coincidence, as after a long search through his memory, he realized that he spent half of his childhood in an abandoned clay mine, which was full of mud, water and garbage. So the path was paved.
Miha Perne studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, where he graduated in 2004. He has received several awards throughout his career. In 2011, together with Leon Zuodar, with whom he forms the artistic tandem Beli sladoled, he received the OHO Group Award, which is given to young visual artists for exceptional achievements. This award is a confirmation of their unconventional approach to art, which combines humor, criticism and a unique visual aesthetic. In addition, in 2023, he received an award for the quality of his artwork at the 12th International Festival of Fine Arts in Kranj, which further confirms his continued presence and influence on the Slovenian art scene.
Miha's work proves that porcelain is not just a material for precious cups and vases, but an extremely playful and exploratory field. If traditional porcelain products are a symbol of elegance and sophistication, Miha's objects are a symbol of freedom and imagination. His art combines the precision of an old craft with the experimental spirit of modern artistic creativity - the result is porcelain that has character, humor and a story.
If you think porcelain is boring, Miha will quickly put you on the right track – or show you that floors can be porcelain too. His works prove that art can be both serious and humorous, and that there is only one step between grandma's service and contemporary art... or a few zombies more.
You can view and purchase Miho's products here .