Mona Lisa Ali is a ceramist using regionally collected clay, silt, and hand-crushed stone to make woodfired vessels through traditional pinching and coiling techniques. Her practice began with a 420-kilometre walk across Jordan, her family’s homeland, where she collected clay samples and became interested in how the temporal change of the land’s colours, textures, and minerals were reflected in the material itself. Since returning to British Columbia, Mona has continued this inquiry through a local lens, exploring how materials make a record of what is preserved and lost in the process of reshaping.
Mona works with Anagama and other wood-fired kilns, where continuous wood-stoking, flying ash, and a powerful flame create distinctive surfaces. She is involved in wood-firing communities across BC. Since 2019, she has contributed to the restoration of an Anagama kiln in the Okanagan and helped sustain this ceramic tradition through community firings to ensure it remains active and accessible for future generations.
Mona looks to ceramics as a way of understanding human history. From everyday vessels used for cooking and carrying water to objects connected with ritual and burial, pottery offers a record of how people have lived and related to their surroundings. She sees vessels as objects that carry the materials, histories, and experiences of the places and people they come from.
Mona is the sixth recipient of the Judson Beaumont Emerging Artist designation, named in honour of the late BC-based furniture designer.
