Meet the Artist : Maha Mohan
Part of RISD Ceramics Grads Showcase 2025
Thesis : Echoes of Longing
My art explores the existential tension shaped by emotional vulnerability, intergenerational memory, and soft inheritances. Through ceramic sculptures, drawings, and installations, I examine how somatic and relational imprints shape self-worth.
Rooted in figurative abstraction, my work approaches the body as both a vessel and a site of memory where tenderness and fracture coexist. I see clay as a living medium that parallels human experience, quietly preserving mental and physical traces. These works are not created for resolution, but function as psychological performances, as spaces for coexistence, catharsis, and reflection.
They are narrative antidotes through which I find the courage to voice what words cannot hold. Shaped by the weight of expression and the fear of intimacy, they hold vulnerability with care, honoring emotional residue without shame.
Clay’s inherent nature to be shaped, broken, and reformed echoes the cyclical nature of loss, healing, and renewal. This cycle inspires my practice, where repetition becomes ritual, each gesture both an offering and an act of becoming. Geometric forms in my work reflect the tension between internal life and external structures, referencing systems that span from the domestic to the institutional.
My practice speaks a language of emotional lineage and reparenting, where inherited stories, rituals, and embodied knowledge continue to travel through bodies. Through making, I seek to understand the layered complexities of the human psyche.
Learn more about her
@maha.mohan
Photo credits :
@srikar_hari @maha.mohan
Shoutout to
@sanjaytomarx - one of your works has been on my wall as inspiration while I’ve been working in the studio.
@risd_ceramics @risd1877 @risdalumni @risdgraduatestudies
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