RIKA KOVA is an Arizona-based artist and sculptor who primarily focuses on ceramics. Her works include sculptures, lighting, and hand-made custom furniture pieces. Each is a combination of art and design, abstract and functionality. Rika was born and raised in a small town in Siberia, to a family of local indigenous peoples. At the age of nineteen, she immigrated to the US where she developed her artistic skills and received her BFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2022. Currently, Rika works and teaches ceramic classes in her studio in Scottsdale.
the fact that I was born and raised on a farm in Siberia...
“There is a different life somewhere out there. Life with early mornings before sunrise when you run outside to get eggs out of the chicken house to make omelets for breakfast. There is a life where you milk a cow before having a glass of milk. A life where you pick the vegetables in the garden for your salad and slaughter the cow if you want meatballs for dinner. There is a life with long evenings by the fire followed by songs and fairytales. There is a life with constant but pleasant troubles and everyday hard work. A happy life though, and happy people.
I was born and raised on a farm in a small town in southern Siberia. Growing up so close to nature and depending on it physically and emotionally forever imbedded the need to be around it. I lived in big cities in the past decade, and after school was over, I craved to go to a much quieter and less crowded place. I moved into a tiny home on wheels and drove around the country for months to "figure out life." In reality, I was just running away through the country’s most beautiful landscapes. Running away from myself, from responsibilities, growth, fear, love, happiness, all of it. It's in those moments of pure silence I heard the voice inside — all the light that's been hidden that now I desperately wanted to bring out into the world.
I remember I started school dreaming of becoming a designer but still wanted to be an artist. In my head, those were two completely different things: too precise versus too abstract, that somehow now came together in this medium – clay.
I dove in, not knowing what life would look like in the future. I opened a ceramic studio that now became an ocean full of winds and storms, sleepless nights, followed by magnificent calm sunny days, beautiful sunrises and sunsets, unique creatures that swim by along the way, and most times simple days with a lot of physical labor. It reminds me of our home farm: everything takes time, it teaches you patience and that you can't have a harvest season without planting a seed first.”
Rika K.
