Maya Strauss, "Fractured Screen"

Artist Statement

My work is Women’s Work. My grandmothers were homemakers who made crafts to feed and clothe their families and to see their marks in the world. I have worked as a cleaning lady, a waitress, an assistant, a bookseller, a toy seller, and a teacher. Our environments and our objects define us as people; what we eat, how we work, what we buy, what we make. I look for common spaces and shared experiences that articulate the collective histories of separate individuals. Through a shared memory of a place, a feeling, a basic human experience, we can agree, we are similar. I often find myself touching the surfaces of walls and doorways, feeling the imprints of all those who have moved through this space. Sometimes a shape appears and surprises me with its ability to represent a moment long past, like a bug in amber or a footprint in cement.

Artist Bio

Maya Strauss currently lives in Alphabet City in Manhattan. She received a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MFA from the Yale School of Art. Strauss has been included in several art exhibitions, at Studio e Gallery in Seattle, Warbling Collective in London, and MoMa PS1 in New York. Strauss has attended multiple residencies including the Vermont Studio Center, and as part of an ongoing collaborative project with Julia Rooney at The Meeting House in Troy, New York. In July of 2019, Strauss attended the Byrdcliffe Guild’s residency, where she began an ongoing collaborative project with her husband, bassist Evan Crane. Strauss’ jobs in multiple bookstores, toy stores and a library, have had a profound effect on her work. In June of 2021, Strauss made a cover design and fifty limited edition hand-painted covers for “To the Cold Heart” written by Clark Coolidge and published by Fenrick Books.

Drawer 4- “Fractured Screen”, acrylic and pencil on paper, 8 x 8 inches, 2020, $100