MAGAZINE
When the Table Becomes a Canvas
There are objects we place on a table because we need them. And there are objects that change the table completely, bringing character, memory, texture, humor and a sense of occasion into the space around them.
This was the idea behind DI Catalogue’s x ECLECTICTLV Open Call “One Table” – to discover local artists, designers and makers working across ceramics, metal, textile, wood and other materials, and to explore what happens when their objects leave the studio and become part of a shared table.
12 artists-finalists are with very different visual languages and approaches to making. Some work with traditional craft, others with experimental materials; some create functional objects, while others move freely between utility and sculpture. What connects them is the belief that an everyday object can be much more than something we simply use.
For the final chapter of the project, we invited designer Ran Golan, founder of Rango Atelier in Tel Aviv, to work with the selected pieces.
Rather than styling a conventional festive table, Ran approached the objects as material for a composition. Each setting became its own little world.
And this is exactly what we wanted to see: how a handmade object can set the rhythm of a table, become an accent, provoke curiosity or completely change the atmosphere around it. Because sometimes all it takes is one strange bronze bird, an imperfect ceramic vessel or a piece of textile in exactly the right place to make a table unforgettable.
Meet the Artists:
Tel Aviv–based ceramic artist Melani Hekimoglu moves between functional ceramics and sculpture. Beginning with archetypal vessels, she pushes, distorts and reshapes them, allowing traditional techniques to meet spontaneity and imperfection.
Her Flow, Melt and Spiral collections capture movement in different ways — fluidity frozen in clay, the softness of collapsing wax translated into a solid form, and the traces of the potter’s wheel left deliberately visible
Yelena Beliaev works with needle felting and mixed media, exploring memory, identity and cultural codes. Fruit and vegetables often appear in her practice as emotional triggers — ordinary things capable of suddenly transporting us into a personal memory.
Her life-size felt fruit and vegetables introduce something wonderfully surreal to the table: familiar forms recreated through an entirely unexpected material.
For more than a decade, ceramic artist and designer Eugene Smirnov has been exploring objects that can change through interaction.
His reversible cups can be turned upside down to reveal another volume and another function – espresso becomes filter coffee, coffee becomes tea, a drinking vessel becomes a small serving object. A simple gesture transforms both the object and the way we use it.
Katya Lazarenko
Katya Lazarenko contributed textile pieces for the table – runners and napkins, bringing another layer of pattern, softness and materiality into the compositions.
Shiri Lopata creates hand-built ceramic objects inspired by the movement, structures and quiet rhythms of nature. With a background in interior and fashion design, she treats clay almost like textile — something that can fold, flow and carry weight.
For the project, her botanical Leaf works and Ocean Peel pieces brought asymmetry, raw texture and organic movement to the table – objects suspended somewhere between sculpture and functional vessel.
Judith Nusimovici — L’Atelier Fine Furniture Maker & Restorer
Rooted in the French tradition of ébénisterie, Judith Nusimovici works with solid wood and traditional decorative techniques including veneer parquetry, rye-straw marquetry and inlays.
Her handcrafted cheese slicing boards were conceived not simply as kitchen tools, but as centerpiece objects — bringing wood, craftsmanship and understated warmth to the festive table.
VELVART brings natural textures and organic forms into objects for the home. For the Open Call, Keren Velvart presented
the ECHO tray series, inspired by ripples spreading across the surface of water.
Cast in stone-like material, the trays capture a fleeting movement and make it permanent, turning a serving object
into something tactile that almost asks to be touched.
Founded by Irit Biran, NoW Studio in Jaffa creates handmade tableware and decorative objects rooted in traditional ceramic techniques.
The studio’s work grows from Irit’s love for cooking, hosting and aesthetics, making the table itself a natural part of her creative language.
For the Open Call, she selected a collection of plates that represents the studio’s clean, elegant and minimalist approach
to everyday tableware.
Noa Itzchaki — nowaaay
Industrial designer and metalworker Noa Itzchaki approaches objects as artifacts rather than products. Working mainly in cast brass and silver,
she reconnects traditional metalworking techniques with familiar domestic forms, transforming them into something slightly unexpected.
For the Open Call, her cast-bronze Sunny Egg Holders, Crane Candle Stands, Golden Hen Spice Dish and Pekin Duck Napkin Holders brought
humor, memory and permanence to some of the smallest rituals around the table.
Liza Fedotova makes ceramics driven by a fascination with simple forms, volumes, and clear lines. Working with clay has given her the opportunity to explore and define the line between chaos and order. She is interested in spatial design with a focus on shapes and composition of objects.
For the Open Call she presented a striped tableware collection: cups, a bowl and a jar. The pieces balance playfulness and precision, reflecting Liza’s ongoing exploration of order within simple forms.
Textile designer and illustrator Guy Megides creates colorful objects for the home using her own original prints and locally produced materials.
Her festive table runner turns an unconventional semi-transparent polyester mesh into a graphic centerpiece. Its geometry and saturated color can sit against a minimal white table or become part of a much richer composition of flowers, objects and color.
For Alina Bazak, clay is a way of translating emotion and intuition into physical form. Her one-of-a-kind ceramics are made freely by hand, without sketches or repetition, moving between classical proportions and deliberate imperfection.
Her sculptural vessel combines a rounded, almost soft body with a restrained narrow neck and layered flowing glazes — an object designed to hold flowers, but equally capable of standing alone.
On its own, each object tells a story. Brought together, they begin to speak to one another and what were once separate stories become chapters of the same unexpected, captivating novel.
That may be the most interesting thing we took away from this project. A table does not need to be perfectly matched to feel beautiful. Quite the opposite. Different materials, scales, colors and artistic languages can create tension, rhythm and personality, especially when every object carries the trace of the person who made it.
A table can be functional. It can be beautiful. Or it can become a space of its own.
Photography – Iya Volkov
Styling – Ran Golan
Creative initiative and production – Nadia Kraginski (DI Catalogue)
Art curation – Ela Cohen (ECLECTICTLV)
Chief Editor – Olga Goldina
