James Jean’s Blossom Vessel opens a ceramic shell around emerging faces

James Jean’s Blossom Vessel is a ceramic edition of 300, released through Avant Arte. The publisher’s euro-denominated listing shows €1,050 and currently marks it sold out; displayed prices can vary by region. Its exact product record dates the launch to 20 August 2026. Standing 22 cm high, the vase gives the Blossom project a sculptural form, with faces emerging through a fractured-looking glazed surface.

An opening in the shell

Avant Arte connects the work to the Māori creation story in which the separation of Sky Father and Earth Mother allows light into the world. That account is the publisher’s stated framework for Jean’s interpretation. The vessel’s stacked, rounded forms make emergence visible at several points: smooth, dark faces interrupt the pale textured coating, while the opening at the top confirms the object’s vase structure.

The exact production description is unusually useful here. Blossom Vessel is slip-cast earthenware with a blue-black engobe base coat. Above it are two glaze layers, pink beneath a white snakeskin-effect finish. The official photograph shows the pink and dark lines between pale surface islands, rather than an evenly coloured shell. This is more than decorative crackle applied to a picture of a face: the contrast between smooth facial features and the broken-looking coating organizes the three-dimensional object itself.

The publisher notes that firing creates differences in colour and glaze between examples. Those differences belong within the edition of 300; they do not make every vessel a separately issued colourway. For a collector comparing photographs, variations in the glaze should therefore be considered alongside the common sculptural form and the identifying marks on the base.

A vessel beside a print

Blossom Vessel was made alongside Blossom Kannyu, a separate paper edition. Avant Arte offered lower, matching edition numbers to collectors acquiring both pieces as part of the release. That pairing creates a documented connection between the works, but the vessel remains a distinct ceramic object rather than a framing or finish option for the print.

The vessel measures 22 × 16 × 16 cm, in height, width and depth. The edition number and artist’s signature are engraved on its base, and a certificate of authenticity is included. That location is worth checking against the exact object, since the promotional frontal view does not display the marks. The product page does not state whether it is watertight or provide care instructions.

Seen beside a paper work, Blossom Vessel shifts attention from an image’s edges to a surface that continues around an object. Its compact scale and layered glaze make the creation-story premise tactile: separation appears through the meeting of dark, smooth forms and a pale shell that seems to be opening around them.