Masha Kolosovskaya | Vase №13

It is a very personal, lengthy but finite story. We will create 108 objects — 108 beads, formed by our hands and our love, which will then travel around the world. Timid, calm seeds, which will grow in places they have been destined to fall.

Even though we invest a lot of time and effort in each of our pieces, we try to be present in them, as authors, as little as it’s possible, we want them to be what they are made of essentially — clay, fire, milk, wax, air, forest, water as well as mirror new places and people they would belong to.

Masha Kolosovskaya, pottery artist

Masha Kolosovskaya and Vladimir Kosyak are ceramic artists, having worked together since 2016. They met a year before at a ceramic workshop in Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts, and, in Maria’s words, she instantly understood that he was her artistic soulmate.

The artists in this duet not only complement each other’s skills, but also match each other’s artistic temperament. “Vladimir grounds and supports me, I can work with him calmly and confidently. And I help him to step out of his comfort zone sometimes.” – Maria says.

Fābula gallery is proud to present a collection of fine objects “108”. It features, as its name suggests, 108 unique, carefully crafted pieces.

Masha and Vladimir use a very traditional Russian craft technique of “milking” – after initial baking ceramic piece is covered in milk and baked for the second time. It gives a unique deep brown colour to the terracotta. After, the piece is covered with bee’s wax and polished with stone. These manipulations help to create a special warm texture, reminiscent to wood or leather. Finished objects become a sort of a trompe-l’œil, It is impossible to guess what they are made of, instead inviting you to touch and feel them.

All the pieces are hand-crafted and unique: the final shape appears on the potter’s wheel, following the hands of its creator. They create an oppression of the non-man-made objects, as if they are some sort of animated creatures, found by the artists on the riverside, brought to the studio, covered with milk and wax and now looking for a new home.

Masha and Vladimir came to the decision that “108” shall be their last collaboration, at least in the foreseeable future. After completing this project, the life paths of the artists shall diverge. In Maria’s words: “We shall close our joint workshop and work separately from now. It is hard to imagine now the character of my next project, but I can imagine that it would something completely opposite to the calmness and meditativeness of our ‘beads’”.