Maria works with glass, wax, paper etc. Glass is preferable material for her works. Glass has completely unique and controversial sculptural and physical qualities. It represents a vulnerable frontier between existing and non–existing worlds. Working with this material allows to establish a concrete but fragile balance between the real and the abstract object. The change of a liquid ephemeral substance into a sturdy physical form and back again, is very much in the nature of glass – and this very much resembles the way she works and thinks
Deliberately broken, imperfect and collapsed shapes, still reminding of a heart - the most essential life organ and one of the most reproduced and trite symbol.
Maria wanted to bring uncomfortable and complex associations, to imbue the hearts with a sense of brokenness, fragility and durability –qualities which characterize glass as well as the heart in its understanding as a symbol for romance, love and life.
She tried technically to play with the idioms pertaining to the symbol – cold heart, broken heart, warm hearted, heart of stone etc.
During the process of creating this pieces she made precise study drawings of real pigs hearts which are the closest ones to human.
During 2018 I have had a very intense and exciting artistic stayin Japan, supported by the Danish Arts Foundation. I have made a whole new series of works based on the bondage technique Shibari, which I try to incorporate into my own personal experiences and techniques.
A part of this project was that the well-known bondage artist, Nawashi Go Arizue spent a day tying me up and hanging me from the ceiling in a variety of ways. This was photographed by the Japanise photographer Yoshiaki Kita and filmed by video artist Izuru Mizutani at the theater where it took place. This artistic research, has resulted in videos, photos and abstract rope/glass objects, that are conceptually connected. The "Restrain and Release" working title of this project goes to the core of what I'm trying to say. Neither as an artist nor as a human being can one ever be in complete control. But being in complete control isn’t important. However, recognizing this basic condition of life, is crucial.
Most of the works of this series are part of the installation created for Mindcraft18 - Danish exhibition during Milano Design Week. Work was shown in South Korea "Crafted Matter "at Cheongju Craft Biennale and Kunsthal Charlottenborg during "The Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition 2020".
Maria made the ropes out of glass, which is a kind of a material impossibility. Ropes bear multiple and in some ways opposite meanings such as: death and rescue, sexual tension, aggression, violence, safety and surviving.
Artist want to investigate the concept of freedom and to examine the conflict between the extreme materialism and fragility which glass represents. These sculptures relate to the Japanese bondage technique – Shibari - a practice that amalgamates control and submission in one action.
When are you in control and when do you have to go with the flow? Are you ever really free? Where is the boundary between power and submission? Technically, she used the real rope as a model and needed to burn it out first in order to fill the mold with glass (to destroy in order to create.)
The central idea of the collective production of works is –that in addition to shaping and dictating my own materials – also become sculptural matter myself. Who and what is controlling what and why becomes blurry during the whole process. Being introduced to the Shibari art was for me absolutely essential in this context and gave me a completely new understanding of my own art and materials.
-Maria Koshenkova