Maria Koshenkova — about

Maria Koshenkova (b. 1981) is a Copenhagen-based artist whose glass sculptures hold a muscular tension within the material itself. Pushing glass to the edge of its physical limits, Koshenkova forms twisting, tensile bodies that hover between abstraction and corporeality, evoking hybrid figures caught in states of tension and transformation.

Inspired by her early training in ballet, Koshenkova approaches glass through a highly physical and performative process. Grounded in classical training in drawing, sculptural modelling, and traditional casting techniques such as lost-wax casting, her practice combines technical precision with intuitive experimentation. Working with both free-blown and cast glass, Koshenkova develops each sculpture through repeated blowing sessions, kiln processes, and cold work in close collaboration with master glassblowers. She has also devised her own tools to manipulate the molten material, allowing heat, gravity, and pressure to shape the final structures. The resulting forms appear stretched, twisted, and coiled, as if the glass itself retained the memory of its own transformation.

Koshenkova has exhibited internationally across Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Born in St Petersburg, she trained at the Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design before continuing her studies at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. She describes Denmark, her home for two decades, as the place where she found her artistic language. Russian-Danish by background, Copenhagen is where she works and shows.