Free Form was a group exhibition at the Riga Porcelain Museum, presented from 14th of June to 11th of August 2024. The exhibition explored the possibilities of porcelain as a sculptural medium, bringing together works by internationally recognised Latvian artists alongside artists from Lithuania, Estonia, and Mongolia.
Focusing on unique, one-of-a-kind objects created through a variety of processes including rolling, building, casting, tearing, and modelling, the exhibition offered a contrasting perspective to the industrially produced porcelain presented in the museum’s permanent collection. Free Form invited visitors to reconsider the boundaries of porcelain and ceramics, and the relationship between form, material, craftsmanship, and artistic expression.
Skuja Braden participated in the exhibition alongside artists including Ilona Romule, Elīna Titāne, Valda Podkalne, Sanita Ābelīte, Jekaterina Sazonova, Tatjana Krivenkova, Andris Vēzis, Eglė Einikytė-Narkevičienė, Kauri Kallas, and Ojūna Batbayar.
The exhibition highlighted the distinctly collaborative approach of Skuja Braden, who have worked together since 1999. Ingūna Skuja and Melissa D. Braden develop their works side by side, from generating ideas and sketches to creating forms and painting them. Their distinctive technique combines bold experimentation with colours, pigments, salts, and glazes, pushing the expressive possibilities of porcelain beyond conventional boundaries.
Curated by Gita Sprince, Free Form brought together artists with markedly different approaches to porcelain while placing the material itself at the centre of the exhibition. Through this diversity, the exhibition demonstrated how porcelain can move freely between functional and sculptural forms, tradition and experimentation, and material discipline and creative freedom.