Zack Nathanson is a Los Angeles–based ceramic artist working between pottery and sculpture.

Originally from the Boston area, I hold a BFA from Pratt Institute. My work draws from modernist and brutalist architecture, graphic and industrial design, and craft traditions. I’m interested in architecture and design as formal languages, and in how scale, repetition, color, structure, and surface create atmosphere. Working with groggy clay slabs and coils, I translate these elements into vessels and sculptural objects rather than reproducing their sources literally.

Typography is central to my work. I incorporate text directly into ceramic forms, treating language as an architectural element that shapes form, proportion, and visual rhythm. Words are chosen for their meaning, tone, cadence, humor, and letterforms, bringing an emotional or poetic quality to the architectural forms. Custom glazes emphasize color, texture, and variation, grounding the work in the traditions of vessel-making.