Archelogoy of Absence, 2025
Irina Razumovskaya is a London-based artist whose work explores themes of female identity, cultural memory, and diaspora. Rooted in material and form, her hand-built ceramic sculptures weave historical references into pieces that embody resilience and reimagine decay as a space of beauty and transformation.
Irina's work blurs the line between artifact and art: architecturally minimal silhouettes and wabi-sabi surfaces give her sculptures the presence of ancient relics unearthed in contemporary times. Layers of peeling glaze and textured clay recall crumbling walls and weathered ruins, quietly unearthing stories of diaspora and survival embedded in material. Despite their minimalism, these forms carry a profound emotional weight - a silent, tactile storytelling that bypasses words and speaks directly to the senses.
Committed to redefining ceramics as a medium of intellectual and artistic depth, Irina positions clay not as craft or decor, but as archaeology of feeling. Each piece is an alchemical fusion of past and present: fragments of cultural memory transformed into modern sculptural poetry. By embracing imperfection and transience, she invites the viewer into a contemplative dialogue about what endures. In the absence of overt narrative, the work itself becomes the narrative - a testament to resilience, belonging, and the shared human impulse to find beauty in broken things.
Irina studied at the Saint Petersburg State Academy of Art and Design (BA, MFA) and the Royal College of Art in London (MA), where she now works as an Associate Lecturer. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including solo presentations at Cromwell Place in London and Officine Saffi in Milan. Her sculptures have also been included in group exhibitions such as FLUX at Sotheby's Stockholm, New Sculptural Presence at Nilufar Gallery during Milan Design Week, and Argylos at Carson Gallery in Athens.
She has been recognised in international competitions including the Loewe Craft Prize, the Mino Ceramic Competition, and the Faenza Prize, and is a recipient of several awards including First Prize at the Westerwald Museum in Germany. Her works are held in public collections including Chatsworth House (UK), the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art (Japan), the Yingge Ceramics Museum (Taiwan), the Icheon World Ceramic Center (Korea), andthe Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon (France).