Masha is a Russian artist based in Dubai. Masha's sense of form was moulded during her student years at the Moscow Architectural Institute. At the time of her studies, she also took an interest in ceramics, discovering that clay could also serve as a vessel for her artistic aspirations. This interest was reinforced at a Tuscany ceramic school where she also studied briefly.
The very materiality of clay is both a field of Masha's artistic research and experimentation as well as a bottomless source of inspiration. She meticulously studies the material's behaviour under various — sometimes extreme — conditions that reveal its strengths and weaknesses. The cracks and ruptures are not regarded as failures, rather they are a revelation of the material's essence.
The taming of the clay demands patience and craft, and Masha is constantly refining her skills by studying and employing different techniques. Some of these are traditional, while others are entirely her own, which she develops by trial and error.
Some of Masha's work manifests an individualistic expressionism, while some, on the contrary, seems to eliminate the author as an individual, giving prominence to the clay itself and to the material forces that turn it into ceramics. Erasing the traces of human presence in this manner, make the objects look like they are a part of nature, found on the forest floor or the bottom of a river.
