- Art & Design
Loreto Lloréns trained as a mechanical engineer, but found her calling in clay. With Elemental Roots Studio, she creates handcrafted ceramic lighting that blurs the line between functional object and sculpture, inspired by coral formations, weathered cliffs and the unpredictability of the kiln. Her work is a constant balance between deep research and pure intuition, and between perfection and the beauty of chance. The result: lamps that don't just light a room, but tell a story.
Loreto Lloréns did not follow an obvious path into ceramics. She trained as a mechanical engineer, but as a child she already spent hours drawing coral-like patterns that seemed to grow endlessly across the page. That fascination with repetition and complexity in nature never went away. Today it sits at the heart of Elemental Roots Studio, where Lloréns creates handcrafted ceramic lighting that lives somewhere between functional object and sculpture.
After years of experimenting with woodworking, furniture making, painting and cement, she found in clay the medium where all her interests came together. She gravitated towards light because it can transform a space without changing it. The same room can feel calm, intimate or dramatic depending on the light. The designer wanted to create objects that remain beautiful whether switched on or off. 
Her creative process combines deep research with pure intuition. She spends countless hours reading, travelling, gathering references and testing materials, rooted in the analytical mindset from her engineering background. But the moment she sits before a piece of clay, the analysis falls away. She follows an instinct she can't quite explain, responding to whatever the material asks of her in that moment.
That tension between control and chance is what draws her to ceramics: no matter how carefully she plans, the kiln always has the final word. Glazes that crawl, surfaces that shift unexpectedly during firing, textures traditionally labelled as failures: Lloréns finds beauty there. That mindset connects to her interest in Kintsugi, the Japanese art in which a broken object is not hidden but repaired in plain sight.
Lloréns lives between northern Spain and Dubai, and both landscapes seep into her work: rugged coastlines, weathered cliffs, desert plains and mineral formations. Travels through Southeast Asia bring her new textures and colours that find their way into her glazes.
At its core, my work is about transformation — turning materials, memories and landscapes into objects people can live with every day
Sustainability runs through her practice like a thread. She salvages parts from vintage lamps, sources materials from charity shops and gives discarded objects a second life. Her ambition is as simple as it is bold: lamps people keep for decades, rather than objects replaced after a single season.
At its core, the work of Elemental Roots Studio is about transformation — turning material, landscape and memory into objects people can live with, day after day.
Text by Manou Raeves
© Loreto Lloréns