Sara Mai (b. 1987, Denmark) is a self-taught artist based in Copenhagen, working across painting and ceramics. With a background in graphic design, art direction, animation and classical drawing, her work brings together a love of colour, composition and the human body.
Women are at the centre of Mai’s paintings, which combine soft, stylised figures with rich but muted colours and graphic shapes. Inspired by friends, ancient sculpture, Surrealism and everyday life, she creates images that feel both calm and full of movement. Her figures often seem caught somewhere between the familiar and the strange, inviting the viewer to look again.
Mai’s ceramics explore a similar balance between softness and structure. Rounded, organic shapes meet more geometric elements, creating sculptures that feel playful, tactile and slightly unexpected. While she often begins a painting with sketches and colour studies, working with clay gives her more freedom to let the piece develop as she goes.
Her creative background continues to shape the way she approaches painting and sculpture, particularly her interest in colour, movement and composition. For Mai, making is also a way of staying connected to curiosity and creativity. She lives and works in Copenhagen.