This body of work forms part of an ongoing ceramic practice that explores the contemporary grammar of emojis. In these works, simplified digital pictograms—icons that compress complex human emotions into efficient, pixelated shorthand—are translated into tactile ceramic forms. Through the slow, haptic processes of hand-building and firing clay, the fleeting emotional signals of digital communication are transformed into weighty, fragile objects that exist in physical time. The kiln introduces an element of unpredictability and resistance, allowing the material to crack, bulge, or warp, underscoring the limits of translating the analogue body into code.

At its core, the work is concerned with processes of translation: from image to object, from digital shorthand to material presence, and from the speed of contemporary communication to the slow labour of making. Through shifts in scale, form, and surface, these ephemeral contemporary symbols are reconstituted as tactile, sculptural experiences.