Tanya Besedina
- 94
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Toronto, Ontario
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About
I am a storyteller, and porcelain is my voice.
Each piece I create is entirely handmade — carrying fragments of my own life and the experiences of those I love: friends, family, ancestors, and the stories entrusted to me. When light passes through porcelain, it feels to me like memory becoming visible. The slowness of this process is part of the story itself; each gesture leaves a trace of care, each layer a quiet memory of touch.
Porcelain connects me to both history and the Mother Earth. Its ingredients — kaolin, feldspar, silica — are ancient materials shaped by fire and time. My growing interest in Parian porcelain and early ceramic histories deepens this connection: I see my work as a dialogue with the past, reawakening forgotten material languages through contemporary hands. I often incorporate found and vintage objects into my sculptures — fragments that once lived other lives. In giving them new form, I honor their memory and extend their lifespan, transforming what might be discarded into something luminous.
At the heart of my work is love — love as self-acceptance, as transformation, as the force that unites. I believe that when we truly embrace ourselves, we create peace — within and with one another. The energy we waste on conflict could instead nourish what is fragile and essential: children who grow with awareness, the earth that sustains us, the art that connects us, and the beauty we all share. Unity is the remembrance that we were never truly separate. It is the quiet return to wholeness — within ourselves, with each other, and with something greater than us.
Porcelain — fragile yet resilient, able to hold and filter light — mirrors this transformation. Through its translucency, I shape forms that embody both chaos and renewal: rough textures that speak of hardship, soft curves that whisper of new life, and delicate layers that hold the quiet strength of survival.
Motherhood is the ground of my practice. My daughter was born blind. Through her, I have learned to perceive life beyond sight — to listen more deeply, to feel more fully, and to recognize beauty in the invisible. I homeschool my children because life is fleeting, and I want to savor these years with them — to witness their growth, to learn alongside them, and to cherish the everyday magic of their becoming. They remind me daily that love is not abstract but embodied, transforming struggle into light.
My sculptures are meditations on transformation, love, loss, renewal, and our interdependence with history and nature. They are filled with ancestral echoes and carry within them the stories of both personal and collective memory. Through porcelain — and through the traces of objects once held by other hands — I open portals inviting us to feel more, remember more, and honor what endures beyond the visible.