Mariya Apostolova
My work moves through cycles of transformation and transmutation in search of emerging meaning. The act of making becomes a form of mediation, heightening my awareness of the subtle balance between self and environment and guiding my interest in creating spaces that invite reflection, resilience and healing.
Mariya Apostolova is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Seattle, originally from Bulgaria. Her practice spans sculpture, mixed media, performance, and film production design, with clay as a primary material. She works across steel, paper, found materials, text, projection, water-based processes, and the body to investigate relationships between form, experience, and environment.
Her work examines material transformation, ecological systems, and embodied memory, informed by experiences of displacement, motherhood, and long-term engagement with landscape. Through process-based and site-responsive methodologies, Mariya focuses on moments of contact, rupture, and imprint, favoring observation and material intelligence over fixed resolutions.
Mariya holds a BA from the University of Washington with a concentration in Ceramics and Sculpture and a minor in Urban Ecological Design. She is an artist member at BallardWorks Artist Studios and has exhibited nationally and internationally, including juried online exhibitions and site-specific installations. Alongside her studio practice, she leads workshops and community programs, including Tvorilnitsa, a monthly initiative centered on traditional and repurposed craft practices. She has contributed to internationally recognized film productions and collaborates on cultural programming with the Bulgarian Cultural and Heritage Center in Seattle.
Exhibitions
2023 You Are Not Alone, Living Artists Collective,
2021 ALL Planet Earth, Contemporary Art Gallery Online Art Competition and Exhibition
2020 Landscapes, Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery, Online Art Competition, Special Recognition for “Perpetually elemental”
2020 Earth, Zest Hall, Online Exhibition
2020 Checklist, Online Solo Senior Thesis Exhibition
https://www.filmabee.com/checklist
2020 A World Becoming With, BA Graduation Exhibition
https://uwbaartexhibition.com/mariya-apostolova/
2019 CoCa – Seattle, Motherland: March 7 - April 20 – group exhibition
2018 North Seattle College Group Show – Group Exhibition
2018 What's your story? - Emergence – ceramic, North Seattle College, Annex space, Solo Exhibit
2018 Singing Chestnut – ceramic, North Seattle College, Annex Space, Solo Exhibit
Bibliography
2019 Inhuman – Five portraits of Rome, poetry. Skin and Plastic, installation art
2019 Licton Springs Review, Seattle. Self-undoing, ceramic figure
2018 Licton Springs Review, Seattle. Rainaways, ceramic
Awards
2025 - Medal “Ivan Vazov” for leadership in promoting Bulgarian culture and education among diaspora communities, Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs .
2019 – 2020 Doris Totten Chase Endowed Scholarship
2019 - Writing in Rome Residency Scholarship
Education
2023-2025 Online Design Academy, Landscape Design.
2020 BA with 3-Dimensional Forum Concentration, University of Washington Seattle
2018 North Seattle Community College, Seattle WA
2016 - 2018 Antioch University, Seattle WA
2006 Red Rocks Community College, Golden CO