Eva Funderburgh

Prancing Beast, 2026, Wood-Fired Porcelain with 23k Gold Kintsugi Repair, 3.5 x 5 x 3 inches. Retail Value: $600.

Seattle-based sculptor Eva Funderburgh creates wonderfully strange and expressive creatures occupy a world somewhere between mythology, nature, and human behavior. Eva is fascinated by the particular logic of myths—the kind of stories where cows are traded for magic beans, tricksters steal stars, or impossible creatures simply exist without explanation. Her sculptures embrace that same sense of what she calls an absurd “rightness of being.” Beasts carry moons and suns, cities grow from the backs of monsters, and curious animals go about their lives as though none of this requires explanation.

And yet, beneath all that whimsy, Eva’s creatures are very much about us. They eat, strive, struggle, cooperate, encounter conflict, and seek companionship. By removing the human figure and giving these experiences to stylized beasts, she creates enough distance for us to recognize our own behavior in a way that feels both familiar and wonderfully strange. Eva has built a wide-ranging sculptural practice encompassing ceramics, bronze, installation, and public art. She is especially drawn to wood firing because of its balance between intention and unpredictability—the artist shapes the work, but flame, ash, heat, and atmosphere have their own role in determining the final surface.

That relationship with wood firing became even more central to her practice in 2023, when Eva realized a longtime goal and built a kiln specifically large enough for her sculptures, supported by an extraordinary community crowdfunding effort.Across all of these materials and processes, Eva continues to explore the same essential territory: the strange, funny, beautiful intersection between myth, biology, and what it means to be human.