I am an artist, architect and founder of Maria Gasparian Studio, a multidisciplinary London-based practice. I create site-specific artworks thoughtfully integrated into buildings, landscapes, and public spaces, fostering a strong sense of place and social ownership. My work responds to local topographical, historical, and social contexts through tactile, colourful installations and street furniture. With over 30 years’ experience, I collaborate closely with consultants, contractors, and manufacturers to ensure quality and longevity.
In my multidisciplinary practice, I explore how ceramics, architecture, and colour can shape future public environments that are vibrant, inclusive and sensorially rich. I imagine new ways of engaging with urban space, from interactive seating and architectural surfaces to bespoke tiles and bricks that draw from material heritage while speaking to contemporary life.
Trained as an architect in Armenia and based in London for over thirty years, I have spent my career working between cultures, connecting the Armenian ornamental language of patterns, textures and colour embedded in carpets, medieval architecture, and everyday objects with the historic and social contexts of the communities I design for.
As both an artist and architect, I create work that is functional and expressive: ornament is not applied, but structurally embedded, ensuring longevity and resilience. I believe the future is most resilient and enduring when it is built on a strong cultural foundation and enriched through meaningful cultural exchange.
Crossroads East, 2022
Crossroads East draws from my upbringing and architectural training in Armenia, a country poised between East and West. Terracotta bricks, cobalt and copper glazes echo Silk Road exchanges, where Islamic geometry met Christian symbolism. Modular forms invite new configurations, imagining resilient, intercultural public spaces shaped by shared ornament.
Manifold, 2023
Manifold draws from the stepping vaults and carved capitals of Armenian medieval churches, where structure and ornament are inseparable. Made in the UK from local clay, yet recalling Armenian tuff stone in colour and textures, these stackable units form walls and ceilings in multiple configurations, revealing Armenian architectural language as manifold, adaptable and enduring.
Randall Pattern Play, 2025
Randall Pattern Play re-imagines Randall Close in Battersea as an outdoor living room. Sculptural glazed-brick benches and paviours form an urban carpet embedded with chess and backgammon boards, games shared across cultures around the globe. Through this project, ornament becomes durable, playful and communal infrastructure, shaping the public space through craft, colour and shared experiences.
For more information please see: https://www.mariagasparian.co.uk/public-art/randall-pattern-play
Carpet, 2023
Carpet translates the language of Armenian woven rugs into terracotta clay tiles glazed with saturated, earthen tones. Inspired by natural dyes and domestic interiors where carpets line walls and floors, these modular surfaces extend a sense of home into contemporary architecture, imagining warmth, belonging and continuity in future public spaces.
Shared Ornaments, 2024
Shared Ornaments transforms motifs from illuminated manuscripts and medieval church carvings into tactile stoneware tiles. Cobalt and copper glazes animate their relief, inviting touch and human connection. Designed for interior surfaces and bespoke domestic objects, their enduring clay body allows ornament to be shared across generations, carrying Armenian decorative language into future spaces.