Born in the USSR, designer and artist Irina Razumovskaya creates modern as well as archaic forms from ceramics and simultaneously exposes them to a destructive process.
The results are one-of-a-kind, fragmented and peeled off structures, which sometimes resememble wood, sometimes archaelogical findings. Razumovskaya studied ceramics and glass-design at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London and graduated in 2017. Her paintings as well as her ceramic works have been a part of various international exhibitions, residencies and competitions. Lately, her objects were presented at the Officine Saffi Gallery in Milan, which today represents her work EU-wide, and at the Puls Gallery in Brussels.
Razumovskayas sculptures, design pieces and paintings combine architectural forms with innovative surface effects and glazing techniques. Her work is creating visions of crumbling cityscapes, imagined ancient archaeological sites, and objects using purely the material language of ceramics. In her art she explores the phenomenon of self-restraint, censorship and the intimidating consequentialism of decision-making. The pieces discuss fatalism and how this interacts with the notion of individual responsibility, drawing a parallel between these questions and working with clay as a material. Ceramics requires as part of the creative process a physical and irreversible transformation in the nature of the object, leading to a moment of tension where you relinquish the control of the preparation and lose control within the kiln.
Her pieces contain both control and chaos. To achieve the technical results she seeks, she creates her work using rough and sturdy clay, which allows her to have full control over the shapes and silhouettes, typically derived from constructivist architectonic principles. Afterwards she is applying various layers of glazes, clays and minerals, before firing the work. The final result can’t be fully predicted or controlled – the heat of the kiln offers a moment of fundamental and unpredictable transformation, where all the materials go through complex chemical reactions. As a result the layers melt, peel, decay, leaving her as a maker to accept the final result that she only partially participated in.
