Robert Vogland

Go for a dip in the tile pool designed by Robert Vogland, a ceramic artist based in Kailua . Hawaii , and you might be surprised at what you see. His tile work can make a dolphin appear to jump off a cobalt blue floor or capture the grace of a sea turtle at a casual crawl. With a unique blend of artistry and technical expertise, Vogland creates ceramic murals that mimic plant and sea life, using such touches as raised textures, bright colors and subtle shading to bring his images to life. 

When you look at Vogland's work, the first thing you might wonder is exactly what to call it: like a mural, the colors he created are intense and intricately graduated; like a tile mosaic, countless small pieces fit together in complicated patterns to reveal various images; and like a sculpture, his ceramic work has a freeform, three-dimensional quality. The "hand-sculpted" nature of his work is apparent in the irregularity of the tile shapes and in the fact that many of the tiles he makes are not flat, he might brush his fingertips across the wet clay to create lines or intentionally roughen a surface to give it a more realistic look. To date, Vogland's work has appeared in both commercial and residential pools, as well as in such dry-land applications as entryways, floorings, wall art, outdoor signage and even a restaurant's pizza oven. 

Vogland has been selling his ceramic murals professionally for about seven years. His goal was to develop a different look, one much closer to the fluidity of water than the rigid lines of traditional, straight-edged tile. His innovation (and the attribute his customers admire most) is the freeform shape of the grout lines in his murals. "Negative space is just as important as positive space." Says Vogland, "So I decided it would be important to design my own grout lines." 

The idea came from noticing the patterns created by light reflecting on the bottom of a pool. "I noticed the totally random shapes, how they flickered and happened only at the moment, and decided to try to mimic them," Vogland commented. "I just started making up my own patterns, basically at random." It is this perfectionist's attention to the smallest details that make Vogland's work so realistic and so captivating to customers and admirers.