The space between people is a focus for my work.
I explore human interactions by using second hand objects that have their own attached histories and sentiments. These objects, often mass produced, are both recognizable and nondescript. Clothing, small trinkets, furniture and fixtures, once belonging to specific persons or spaces, are divorced from their original contexts and brought together into totemic forms that concentrate feelings of familiarity. Once recognized, they become part of a vocabulary of common experience. Their identities are also hidden within larger masses of things; inside soft folds and behind hard, cast surfaces.
The objects I collage into new forms reference domestic spaces where intimacy is stratified and the distances between people are mediated. Some rooms, such as the parlor or living room, are points of contact that present the inhabitants’ identity to the outside. Living spaces also reinforce identity inwardly. Rooms, tables and cabinets become platforms for self-curation where possessions are chosen and arranged according to sentiment and value systems. I use these domestic rituals to invite the viewer into remembered spaces where meaning is controlled and conveyed through concealment and display.
Bio
Native to Florida, Maria earned her BFA in drawing and painting from Florida State University in Tallahassee. There she became fascinated by images of wilderness, infrastructure and in-between places such as deserted gas stations on Interstate 75 and the Apalachicola National Forest. Despite her interest in putting paint, graphite and ink to surface, she quickly began working with textiles and sculpture, and began studying in the MFA program for sculpture at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
In Florida she has since exhibited at 621 Gallery and SOUP Experimental in Tallahassee, and at AQUA Art Miami. In Georgia she has exhibited at The Plantation Wildlife Arts Festival in Thomasville, Trio Gallery in Athens, and the Ernest G. Welch gallery in Atlanta. Maria’s work was recently in a solo exhibition entitled Whim and Want at 621 Gallery and was included in an exhibition entitled "The Economy of a Woman’s Touch" in dialogue with a coinciding exhibition of international artist Ghada Amer’s work. Currently she is exploring memory and meaning affixed to domestic spaces as she moves toward her thesis at GSU. Her thesis exhibition entitled “The Whole of the Hidden Thing” was in early March 2019 at the Ernest G. Welch Gallery.