How do you express tradition and innovation in your work?
I work with traditional ceramic techniques: hand-building, press-moulding, glazing... But at every step of the making process, I try to break the rules and do something that is not traditional, not 'allowed'. This always results in innovative effects.
What do you love most about clay?
That it offers endless possibilities. You can learn all your life about different techniques, nuances, its depth. Working with clay is more of a relationship to me, rather than just a means of self-expression: full of discoveries, charms and disappointments, ups and downs.
©Kate See
Did you always envision a career as an artist?
As an adolescent, I actually had maths studies or classical philology in mind. Although I had always loved making art, I could not imagine it as my profession. The prospect of getting into St. Petersburg’s State Academy of Art and Design, let alone the Royal College of Art in London, seemed almost impossible.
How did you manage to get into this academy?
I went to drawing and painting classes every day after school, and on weekends, for three years. Even though it meant I had no free time in my late teens, I was so absorbed in copying Michelangelo’s sketches, drawing portraits and learning anatomy, that I did not mind.