3Q to the Artist

Three questions to Mariia Bekhova

2 Oct 2026

About Mariia Bekhova

Mariia Bekhova is a contemporary artist originally from Eastern Ukraine. She creates decorative sculptures and functional art objects, working primarily with ceramics and hand-building techniques. Her practice explores abstract and naive forms, which she develops at her ceramic studio near Kyiv. Mariia values working in her home country and contributing to its development.

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Be honest: do your pieces listen to you as you work, or do they have a mind of their own and get up to mischief? Have you ever started with one idea, only for the clay to decide for itself what it wants to become? Do your pieces invite you into their own imaginary universe?

When I start working on a new piece, sometimes I have a specific idea or experiment in mind and try to bring it to life. Other times, I simply take some clay and start shaping it. The form always begins at the bottom, with a circle or an oval that becomes the foundation for the piece.

Sometimes I start creating a form with a particular thought in mind. For example, I once had someone tell me that it was impossible to put flowers in my vases because they were too low. So then I have a clear goal: to make a taller vase. Everything else seems to happen almost automatically.

And sometimes I might just start sculpting because “I haven’t made anything in a while.” In general, I never have a precise reference or an idea that I’m trying to reproduce perfectly. Here, I’m neither an engineer nor a builder. I’m more like a shell that forms a pearl inside itself. The pearl can be white, pink, or black; it can be crooked or perfectly even. The clay and I form a kind of symbiosis, taking turns listening to each other.

Has art ever helped you put into words something you had kept inside for years? Things like losing your home in Horlivka, dealing with criticism, or going through difficult periods?

Over the past two years, I made two pieces that were about grief. Through ceramics, they allowed me to express both my pain and my respect. But I don’t want to continue working in this direction because I don’t want to keep revisiting those painful memories.

Right now, I want to focus more on light and life, so my ceramics are now positive, either through their colour palette or their forms. I’m also planning to start a ceramic series dedicated to the Donetsk region, where I’m from.

I definitely don’t portray a picture of constant success on social media. I’ve chosen to keep my social media more lifestyle-oriented, so I share both failures and good moments. In fact, I probably talk about failures more often than successes.

I use social media as a promotional tool that sometimes helps me sell my work, but also as a space where I can show my journey to other artists who feel lost or discouraged, just as I once did. Staying consistently active there is difficult for me, so there are sometimes gaps in my posting schedule. Instead of posting once or twice a day, I might post once a week.