Maria Dawn

Maria Dawn is an interdisciplinary artist, work is rooted in human interactions of the self-in-dialogue, multiplicity, and mortality, utilizing multiple project-based specific mediums and context. Themes are focused on modern labor, constructs of gender roles, hierarchical patterns of control, and the mythos of objects.  Her work includes community engagement through landscaping and gardening, mural painting, and public performance.  Paintings explore hoax narratives, abstract process-based paintings, and surreal scenes of contemporary life.

Maria has lived in Long Beach for the past two years, moving from Oakland, CA where she attended San Francisco Art Institute studying painting, new genres, and film. She also has a BA in Psychology from the University of Cincinnati, where she was born and raised. Her interests in making objects began at a young age by helping her grandfather put together his homemade fishing lures, mailing them around the country.

Since graduating from San Francisco Art Institute, she has performed pieces at Yerba Beuna Contemporary Art, Southern Exposure, Adobe Books, and the de Young Museum. Her artwork has appeared at the Luggage Store Gallery Project Space, the International UFO Museum, the Incline Gallery and The Hatch in Oakland. The Institute of Hilda Hilst published an article on her performance “Becoming the Wall,” and had a photograph published in the art magazine, V̶E̶N̶T̶R̶I̶L̶O̶Q̶U̶I̶S̶T̶. Currently, she works at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. She is passionate about education, gardening, contemporary art, and psychology.