Maria Poe
About This Work
CAN-verse is an ongoing ceramic project that transforms the industrial form of a tin can into a living sculptural system.
Working with clay, I turn a familiar mass-produced container into objects that bend, collapse, grow, connect, and multiply. The project includes several related series: individual can bodies, six-pack structures, connected forms, and organic variations – each exploring the tension between the artificial and the natural.
Artist Bio
Maria Poe (aka Ponomareva) is an artist and designer recognized with numerous international awards, including Cannes Lions, Red Dot, The Dieline Awards, and Pentawards. Born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, a city known for both heavy industry and traditional crafts, she grew up between two worlds: her mother, an architectural critic, and her father, an engineer. This contrast between precision and expression later became central to her creative approach. Maria holds degrees in Fine Arts and Economics from Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University and graduated from the British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow, Russia. Her diploma project, Visual Identity of Nizhny Novgorod (2010), was among the first examples of territorial branding in Russia and remains in use today. After more than a decade in visual communications, Maria was granted an O-1 artist visa in recognition of her international achievements and relocated to New York, where she shifted her focus from commercial design to contemporary art. Working primarily with ceramics and porcelain, she explores identity in relation to mass culture, transformation, and the tension between industrial form and human touch.
Mediums
Ceramics & Pottery, film