Verge Mug, 2026. Ceramic, wheel-thrown with hand-painted underglaze and clear glaze. 3" (H) x 3.5" (D) x 6.5" (W).
Diana Hoover is a ceramic artist, based in Asheville, NC, and working under the studio name Knook Ceramics. She creates functional pieces that explore the intersection of contemporary craft with fine art and design, often incorporating sculptural elements such as exaggerated curves and oversized, industrial-looking handles. These unusual functional components invite new perspectives, such as a different approach to an action as simple as holding a mug. Deeply influenced by the Bauhaus, minimalist art, neo-concretism, geometric abstraction, and modern quilting, Hoover’s body of work is wheel-thrown and hand-built with a creamy white clay body and an emphasis on surface decoration. Utilizing the technique of hard-edge painting, she uses masking tape and underglaze to paint meticulous, repeated patterns and bold graphic motifs on the surfaces of each piece, which then can drastically warp and distort over the strong curves and shoulders of the 3-dimensional forms. Hoover brings a PhD (Louisiaina State University) and a 15-year career in the sciences to her craft. In her work, there is a tension between a scientific striving for “perfection” with the awareness of the limits of control and embrace of imperfections such as visible brush strokes or glaze bleeding and drips. These variations reveal that each piece is unique, handmade, and an organic collaboration between the artist and her materials.
