Mothia Bella

I don’t always know how to say what I feel, but I have learned how to sculpt it.

I grew up in a quiet Lithuanian village near the Belarusian border. It’s not a place many people would know, but it gave me space—to be silent, to listen, and to notice the way feelings live beneath the surface of things. Because of a small hearing difference I was born with, I’ve always spoken a little slower, a little softer than others. For a long time, I thought that meant my emotions had no voice. It took years before I understood: my hands were already speaking for me.

I began sculpting as a child, but it wasn't until my late teens that I understood what I was really doing. I wasn’t just shaping clay—I was pulling things out of myself that I couldn’t put into words. Anxiety, tenderness, grief, hope—they all came through in faces with closed eyes, in bodies entangled with things that grow, decay, or wait quietly in the dark.

My studio is a small attic above my grandmother’s house. There’s nothing romantic about it—just wooden beams, cold mornings, and tools I've used so many times they feel like an extension of my fingers. But it's here, in that private silence, that most of my work takes shape.

A few years ago, I was invited to show my pieces...

2020 – 2023
Independent Sculpture Residency
Kaunas Artists’ House, Kaunas, Lithuania

2018 – 2020
BA (incomplete) – Fine Arts / Sculpture Track
Vilnius Academy of Arts, Vilnius, Lithuania