“In my ceramic practice, I return to the volcanic landscape of my childhood in Kamchatka, where everyday life unfolded between lava fields and the silhouettes of volcanoes. The feeling of vast space and my own smallness stayed with me and now appears in my ceramics as an inverted scale: the immensity of the landscape remains offstage, while small botanical fragments are enlarged and brought close. Weathered forms - pods, pinecones, seed cases - draw me in as they change over time: from young, green fullness to open, mature structures; from enclosing life to revealing the architecture that once held it. In these transitions, nature becomes a series of shifting mirrors, reflecting back phases of human experience.”

The contrast between bright plants and rough lava is revealed in Katya’s work as glossy, coloured glazes set against dry, rough clay surfaces. She creates contemplative objects that invite reflection on inner change and the amazement of life continuing to unfold from within as we age.

Her pod series explores midlife: a stage when a gap opens up following raising a family and/or establishing a career - a space in which meaning has to be found or made again. The open pod forms offer a different way of looking at this period. A pod completes its biological function and begins to decay, and it is precisely then that its inner architecture is revealed. The outer surface carries the marks of time, while the inner surface speaks of renewal and latent possibility. The contrast between these layers became the project’s central metaphor: maturity, not as fading, but as a transition toward new inner content.

Her pinecone series likewise contemplates the beauty that remains beyond usefulness – a parallel to human lives, which also continue to unfold in beauty after the roles we’re expected to play have shifted. Small pinecones are translated into enlarged ceramic pieces, bringing every groove and scale edge into focus. Their outer surfaces remain dry and rough, while the insides of the opened scales are glazed, exploring clay’s material range from raw, coarse clay to luminous, glossy glaze.

Outdoor Sculpture