About Marina...

 

Marina was raised in France, Africa and England and she now lives in Manchester.  Her initial training was in Fine Art sculpture and she describes herself more as a clay poet than a ceramicist.  She uses a meditative approach when starting a piece and works mainly intuitively, using hand building methods such as coiling, pinching, carving and sculpting to shape her pieces from paper porcelain or other clay bodies.  Once bisque fired, each piece is hand decorated and fired multiple times.  Marina uses the Japanese word Kami (a divine being or spirit in Shinto religion) to describe her work.  

 

Through her work Marina explores her relationship and reverence with the world of nature.  She draws inspiration from multi-cultural sources and a deep connection with nature.  It is her belief that human beings need a strong relationship with the natural world in order to live a balanced life; "we were once deeply connected, through our hearts, to forests, rivers, mountains, plants and animals, but through our modern way of life we are losing this deep connection." 

 

Animism is at the core of much of Marina’s creative practice and thus she aims to create pieces filled with breath, spirit and life and hopes that they will inspire the viewer to rekindle the relationship between their own inner nature and the natural world.  Her work is mostly figurative.  She uses a sketchbook to record ideas but it is more of a visual diary then a way of working out and planning the process step by step.