About Maria

Maria’s early creative training and professional work were in graphic design, at a time when the industry was transitioning from drawing boards to computers. As graphic practice became increasingly digital, she realised she missed the hands-on act of making. This realisation led her to ceramics, initially experimenting at home before undertaking an MA in Ceramic Design at Bath Spa University. Since graduating, she has exhibited nationally and internationally and now works from her studio in Frome.

Working primarily with vessel forms and wall pieces, Maria’s practice is influenced by mid-century art and design and is characterised by a minimal aesthetic. Pared-back forms act as a canvas for bold colour combinations that divide and segment the surfaces. Through this, her work explores aspects of the human condition, expressing personal and societal ideas and thoughts around connection, relationships, boundaries, and division. When grouped, the pieces further extend and deepen these themes.

Her background in graphic design remains a significant influence. An understanding of design, material qualities, techniques, and tools has carried through into her work with clay, while the precision learned at the drawing board is brought into dialogue with the organic nature of the material. Line has been a lifelong fascination - from childhood memories of watching her father, a structural engineer, draw precise black lines on technical drawings, to her own experience producing artwork for print. Now, she seeks to create equally precise lines in three dimensions, wrapping around form. These lines act as boundaries: containing and interrupting, connecting or separating, and defining both the form itself and the spaces within and around it.

The matte surfaces of her ceramics are inspired by the tactile qualities and saturated colours of papers once specified for print, while her making process is informed by the interplay between two and three dimensions. Usually hand-building from flat slabs of clay and using colour to segment surface planes, her practice explores the relationship between the geometric and the organic, and the connections between 2D and 3D space.

Working in small series, Maria continually tests and refines her ideas. Pieces are arranged and re-arranged to examine how forms and colours connect and relate, with a consistent aim of creating harmonious compositions that bring disparate elements together into a cohesive whole. The exploration involved in creating new work brings greater clarity to the ideas that initiated it, while also opening up new questions around form, the use of colour, and making techniques - it is the beginning of the next step into future work.