Maya Strauss

I walk slowly and I take my time getting places. Everyday, I take photographs and make sketches of objects and surfaces that seem to have a visual uniqueness and a complicated history; trash, impressions, snapshots, food, repairs, marks. In the studio, I look through these collected images and objects and I see if they have anything to say as paintings. My paintings are in many ways like portraits. When I find these doors, tiled walls, towels and indents in cement, they introduce themselves, like interesting strangers. There is something about them that I am drawn to and that I want to get to know better; a sympathetic magic. A great deal of my process is intuitive, but it is also about being faithful to the original source and the feeling I had while seeing it. I make diptychs to make sentences out of the things that I find, or conversations between two subjects, or two forms. While painting I try to mimic the feeling of touching that thing’s surface, as well as the feeling I had while looking at it. Often the subjects I chose are things that are being overlooked because of their seeming banality, but that I believe are truly beautiful. I alter and collage these found objects and images until they seem to articulate the original impression that I had of them, or the uncanny quality held within them. I am searching for a poetics of the random. I believe that images of everyday objects act as history bearers, but these histories are not always clear. I strive to create a tactile image of a forgotten moment, something that feels familiar but is contrarily unnamable.