Los Angeles–based ceramic artist Maria Loram approaches clay through a blend of research, experimentation, and intuitive form-building. Her sculptures are characterized by minimalist silhouettes paired with densely organic textures inspired by both natural structures and celestial landscapes. An upcoming presentation at the Agathus showroom will highlight a selection of her recent work.
Maria discovered clay only a few years ago, but the path to her practice began much earlier. Raised in a small town in Russia, she grew up with deep exposure to literature, philosophy, and a cultural tradition that holds beauty and melancholy in close proximity. Later, as a full-time tutor in subjects ranging from chemistry and quantum mechanics to neuroscience and astrophysics, she cultivated a deep curiosity about how the world works. These scientific, spiritual, and cultural influences are reflected in her work today. “I combine the very micro scale with the very far-away scale,” she explains. “Textures that could be from the bottom of the ocean, or from a planet we haven’t discovered yet.”
Becoming an artist required personal transformation as much as technical discovery. A period of profound life change, such as divorce, relocation, and rekindled spiritual exploration, opened the emotional space for her practice to emerge. Meditation, yoga, and Eastern philosophies like Advaita Vedanta and Zen Buddhism continue to shape her approach. “Non-duality taught me that everything is the same when you look close enough or far enough,” she says. “That nothingness is the same as everythingness.” For Maria, this understanding brings freedom: if nothing is truly fixed, then creativity becomes boundless.
Clay, however, is not easily tamed. Its volatility – warping, cracking, bubbling, shifting unpredictably in the kiln – became both her challenge and her collaborator. She approaches the medium with extensive glaze testing, research into material chemistry, and careful control where possible, paired with a willingness to let the kiln do what it will. “There isn’t enough curiosity and wonder if I control every detail,” she says. “I want the material to create with me.” Her distinctive cratered and pitted surfaces, for example, often appear from reactions triggered by silicon carbide, an ingredient she frequently uses to generate atmospheric, otherworldly textures.
Maria describes her process as structured in the beginning and fluid once creation begins. She may sketch, research glazes, and define a palette, but once her hands engage the clay, intuition leads. “This is not production,” she says. “It’s art. I physically cannot and do not want to create identical objects.”
Her first wheel was an inexpensive Facebook Marketplace find, initially sitting in an empty room where she and her husband practiced together. Over time, her home studio filled with tools, test tiles, kilns, and increasingly ambitious works, including towering lamp bases and wall installations. As her mastery expanded, so did her scale. “Now I can grow in all directions,” she says. “Height, width, everything.”
Teaching has become a meaningful extension of her practice. Through international workshops in Bali, Lebanon, Portugal, and additional online courses, Maria multiplies her experiments and shares her methods generously. Students often tell her that her instruction unlocked new possibilities for them. “My biggest goal is giving people the tools to be curious,” she reflects. Just as clay gave her a path into artistic selfhood, she hopes her teaching helps others discover their own.
“The fact that atoms assemble themselves into a body that can think, move, and be conscious is miraculous,” she says. She hopes her objects remind viewers of that miracle. Even as she navigates the vulnerability of being seen, she imagines her legacy in helping others embrace their lives fully. “I want to bring the desire to live,” she says. “To appreciate the experience of being here, even in difficult moments.”
As Maria’s pieces come together for the Agathus showroom, her work invites viewers to step outside the familiar scale of their own lives and into a broader sense of wonder.
Explore more of her work at loramceramics.com