Height .5 in., Width 8 in., Depth 5 in. Weight 7.2 oz. This hand built and hand painted ceramic sculpture by Natalya Sots depicts a fantastical flying bird in a flat wall relief form, the teal painted body decorated with incised feather marks and applied red glass bead dot accents, the ochre gold wings painted with bold linear feather patterning, the tail rendered in overlapping blue and terracotta chevron feather forms and the three elongated purple legs decorated with yellow circle motifs. The expressive painted eye with lash detail and the vivid red beak give the figure the lively anthropomorphic character that is the hallmark of Sots distinctive folk art inspired ceramic vocabulary, in which brightly colored fantastical creatures are built by hand and painted with intricate fine line decoration drawing on global folk art traditions. Natalya Sots was born and trained as an art educator in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan, where she worked at a ceramics factory and taught at a private art school before emigrating to the United States in 2002 and establishing her studio in Schaumburg, Illinois, where she has developed a devoted following for her whimsical hand crafted ceramic figures. The work is signed by the artist and is in excellent condition with vivid unfaded colors and no chips or losses to the ceramic surface.