Wild Company by Claudia Kraml

With Wild Company, the Kunstforum der Werkschule Oldenburg presents an exhibition by the South German artist Claudia Kraml, whose ceramic companions reveal themselves as wild, delicate, and at the same time surprisingly human companions. As the title already suggests, this is not a familiar ensemble of animals – rather, the audience encounters a society of idiosyncratic, lovingly modeled beings, a “wild society” composed of animal forms, human-like qualities, and the spaces in between.

Kraml’s figures are endearing, even though – or perhaps precisely because – they do not conform to the familiar. Some appear shy, others defiant or self-assured, yet all seem endowed with an inner voice that radiates a quiet presence. Their gazes are attentive, searching, sometimes challenging, and often marked by a melancholic depth that both moves and unsettles.

Many of these beings are reminiscent of animal species, yet elude any clear classification. The artist deliberately plays with identity and expectation: Is what at first glance appears to be a fox perhaps a wolf in sheep’s clothing after all? Or is one’s essence ultimately not determined by the exterior, but rather the other way around? These shifts give rise to figures that appear both familiar and alien – creatures of an in-between world that reflect the full spectrum of human emotions.

Claudia Kraml also consistently breaks with conventions in her formal approach: Her surfaces reveal the rough, cracked, and vulnerable. Wiry hair in unusual places and carefully painted fingernails and toenails create unsettling accents and heighten the tension between the unadorned and the delicate. Her sculptures appear marked by experiences, traces, and fractures – and precisely because of this, seem uniquely alive.

In the exhibition, visitors encounter figures who seem to have crossed over from a realm in-between: travelers, border crossers, seekers. They move in the no-man’s-land between life and death, closeness and strangeness, the present and memory. Their melancholic poetry, their quiet wisdom, and their jester-like freedom make them touching, resonant apparitions – companions in the deepest sense.

Claudia Kraml was born in 1977 in Kirchheim/Teck. She worked as a registered nurse until 2014, before enrolling at the Freie Kunstakademie Nürtingen to study painting and ceramics, graduating in 2019. She lives and works in Bissingen-Ochsenwang. The artist works with clay that has a high grog content and combines various modeling techniques in her workflow. Some sculptures are built up as a solid mass and later hollowed out, while others are constructed with a hollow core from the beginning. Colored slips, paints, printing techniques, and oxide glazes are applied in numerous layers and compacted through multiple firing phases. Selected pieces are given a finishing touch with fine details such as luster, gold, or ceramic decals. This multi-step process gives rise to the characteristic complexity, depth, and fragile expressiveness of her figures. Introduction: Puck Steinbrecher, Galerie Moderne, Bad Zwischenahn. Opening: Saturday, April 18, 11 a.m.

International Ceramics Days / Ceramicist Portrait

The Ceramicist Portrait on July 31, 2026, offers insights into Claudia Kraml’s methods and artistic background. Time: 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Price: 60 euros, including a light lunch. Registration via www.werkschule.de

• 18.04.2026—29.05.2026
• Werkschule – Werkstatt für Kunst und Kulturarbeit e.V. 
  Rosenstrasse 41, 26122 Oldenburg, Germany
  presse@werkschule.de
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