Irina Lakshin

Irina Lakshin (Deshchenko) was born and raised in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the former USSR. She earned a master's degree in economics from the Academy of Foreign Trade and began her career in banking before moving to the United States in 2009.

After relocating, Lakshin began taking pottery classes as a personal interest and developed a passion for ceramics, studying with a succession of ceramic artists. What began as a hobby became a professional pursuit: in 2013 she began exhibiting in galleries, and she went on to earn a Certificate of Fine Art (2018) and an MFA (2021) from the New York Academy of Art. She works primarily in stoneware clay, porcelain, and terra-cotta, across a range of firing methods.

In 2020, during lockdown, she launched the Mishka series — ceramic teddy-bear sculptures functioning as avatars for human experience. Rendered hard and permanent in fired clay rather than soft, the bears carry titles like Tired, Dreaming, and Looking for a Miracle that read as delegated human states rather than descriptions of a toy's character. Her work has shown at Sotheby's "Take Home a Nude" benefit auctions, the New York Academy of Art, and in group exhibitions across the New York area, and is held in numerous private collections.