Maryam Eskandari

Sculptress | Poet | Storyteller

Maryam Eskandari is an Iranian-born sculptress living in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She works primarily with clay, creating deeply expressive sculptures that explore freedom, resilience, and the human spirit.

Before turning to sculpture, Maryam expressed her emotions through stories and poetry. But in 2000, when she first began working with pottery, she discovered that clay offered a more direct and liberating form of expression. Through her hands, words transformed into shapes tangible forms carrying her emotions, struggles, and dreams.

For Maryam, clay is more than a material; it is a mirror of life. It endures fire, water, heat, and cold, yet emerges transformed a process that resonates deeply with her own journey. These lessons became a source of strength during difficult years in refugee camps, where she spent long nights in a dim basement, shaping clay to find moments of inner peace. Sculpture was also her anchor through one of her greatest challenges: a battle with cancer.

Her works often depict faces, hands, limbs, and full bodies sometimes whole, sometimes broken each piece bearing the weight of lived experience. The nudity in her figures is not simply physical; it is symbolic of ultimate freedom, self-ownership, and emotional truth. In breaking taboos, Maryam’s art celebrates the liberation of both body and soul.

She calls her creations “Genderless Beings in Clay” raw, honest forms that carry both joy and pain. Some smile while crying within; others stand fractured yet unyielding. In every piece, there is a silent but powerful message: even in brokenness, there is life, and the will to keep standing.