Monday, March 7, 2022

Maria Dimanshtein

Artists :: Poet

“Expect the Be(a)st”

Maria is a multi-disciplinary artist and poet. Her installations, mixed media works and paintings have been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout New York City and across the country at venues including Sotheby’s Institute of Art, AHA Fine Arts, Art on Paper Fair, Radiator Arts, Local Project, Trestle Gallery, 440 Gallery, Arizona State University, Woman Made Gallery, Evanston Art Center, Galesburg Civic Art Center. She participated in seven artist residency programs, including studioworks in Eastport, ME and LindArt in Slovenia. In 2016 she was a recipient of Individual Artist Grant from Queens Council on the Arts. Maria holds an MFA in Painting from Northern Illinois University. Born in Latvia, she is current- ly based in Chicago and NYC.

I create work about what it means to be a human in the context of the Universe: living the everyday life with an awareness of the infinity of time and space. My collages, drawings and installations are intimate and poetic and are based on my own experiences. I combine the mundane and the mysterious, juxtaposing elements of the daily reality with those of outer space and darkness of the void. I use dark colors along with white ink and shiny textures and incorporate my poetic writing into my visual work. Some themes that I explore are: anxiety of freedom vs. comfort of the mundane, a yearning for a divine power, sexuality as a gateway to the sublime, and emotional states of being.