Espejo Humeante is the first in a series of short-run exhibitions in Objectspace’s foyer. Three ceramics practitioners have been invited to show recent work over this season, offering an insight into diverse ceramics practices in Aotearoa. 

Espejo Humeante (Smoking mirror) by Iza Lozano, is a modular ceramic work composed of individually wheel-thrown fragments. Each element begins as a plate marked by concentric lines before being removed from the wheel, stretched, squashed, and distorted. The altered forms are trimmed into tiles that come together as a shifting, fragmented surface.

The title refers to Tezcatlipoca, the Mexica deity linked to night, divination, and destiny. In Mesoamerican mythology, the mirror was a portal for seeing beyond the visible world – a tool for intuition, ritual practice, and transformation.

Incorporating a metallic glaze, Espejo Humeante resembles water or a mirror. Rather than offering a clear reflection, the piece proposes a fractured image – a space for projection, contemplation, and symbolic interpretation.

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Iza Lozano is a Mexican-born, ceramic-based artist working across sculpture, jewellery, mixed-media, and installation. Drawing on her background in ceramics and anthropology, her practice explores archaeology, ritual, and symbolism. Through processes of collecting, assembling, and experimentation, she works with clay, paper, archived materials, and glaze to develop richly textured surfaces and sculptural compositions that evoke fragments of Mesoamerican cosmology and imagined narratives. Based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland since 2020, Lozano has completed artist residencies at Auckland Studio Potters and Driving Creek. Her work has been exhibited in Mexico, Spain, and Aotearoa New Zealand, where she is represented by Public Record. Alongside her studio practice, she works as a ceramics tutor and technician.