Washington University in Saint Louis
MAYA CLARK 
mjrodclark@gmail.com
Maya Clark: Defining Her Artistic Voice
October 2024, By Maya Clark
Three main factors that go into making a piece
“The three main factors that go into making a piece are usually lighting, subject, and narrative. For the most part, I try and create a narrative or the potential for one through my figure, its position in space, and the way it’s lit. For this piece I think that is pretty evident because my subject is in a large undefined dark space, but there’s obviously a story or something larger going on since she’s gazing at herself in a large mirror in this ambiguous space. I don’t give away everything that’s happening so that viewers can come to their own conclusions.”
Biggest struggle when it comes to art making
“Finding the line between too much conceptual support and not enough is very challenging because as an artist you never know how much of the symbolism you’re working with is known to your viewer. Figuring out a middle ground is important so that the narrative is broad enough that many can relate but narrow enough to provide visual guidance and direction.”
What’s the hardest piece you’ve painted, and what did it teach you as an artist?
“The hardest thing I’ve ever painted is a figure moving in a long exposure fashion so there are three blurry figures in one. It was very challenging to translate the photograph to a painting because pixels and pigment behave differently and I had to figure out how to create visual hierarchy so it made sense that there were three figures and to suggest a direction of movement as opposed to just translucent figures. I learned that observation is key and leaving biases about what things look like is critical to having an objective view. With regards to subject matter, aluminum foil was the hardest because it’s so intricate and reflective, but distorting facial features through plastic wrap is also challenging because you have to maintain the general features through the plastic.”
When are you ready to paint?
“There is a lot that goes into creating the painting before paint hits the canvas. Usually, I’ll start by brainstorming a long list of concepts that appeal to different themes I'm interested in or materials I’m interested in exploring. From there I do a couple sketches to picture how I would place my subject in space and what props I’d need to find. Then, based on the concept I’ll choose a friend to be my subject and we’ll do a shoot to get reference images I can use to paint. Then, after my canvas has been primed, I sketch an outline on the canvas and I can start painting. For this painting specifically, I knew I wanted to include a mirror but I worked a bunch with Valeriya (my subject) to figure out the best pose and angle.”
“ I tend to paint portraits of people that range from close up to full body paintings. I’m drawn to dark backgrounds and strong light sources that create a sense of drama and lend themselves to the creation of narrative/story. I’m fascinated by the process of painting/image creating so I’m very focused on rendering details and capturing likeness. I’d describe my art as photorealistic portraiture but in reality, my paintings look quite different from the references I start with.”
What do you typically paint?
What draws you to this type of art, and what do you love about creating it?
“I love to paint familiar faces and capture likeness and emotions present on those faces. I also love capturing the smoothness and luminosity of skin in contrast with different textures and materials. This is more evident in other work where I include plastics or other textures materials. For this piece, I loved creating a sense of vastness and space encapsulating my small figure, but I also really enjoyed making my figure recognizable to viewers. My favorite is when someone recognizes the person in the painting from their everyday life, making it much more relatable.”
Painting to Paint: Understanding Maya’s Love for Creation
October 2024, By Grace Malley
Spending the afternoon with Maya, I discovered many things about her as an artist and as a log-rolling instructor. It was a Friday afternoon, and the trees were finally fading from green to orange. The sights of autumn did not match the temperature—it was a humid, almost sweaty day. We strolled from the business school to our final destination, the art school. As we walked, I asked her the usual questions: Why do you paint? What do you paint? And so on.
Prior to our conversation, I never really knew her as an artist, but rather as a classmate. I had always seen Instagram posts of her artwork and looked at them in awe. The extreme realism was transportive. Learning about her career as an artist, I discovered that, unlike your typical modern subversion artist aiming to make a statement, Maya paints simply because she enjoys the process. To her, the message of an artwork is highly subjective. It depends on who you are, what you want to see, and what you know. In totality, the message is always up in the air. But the paint, the canvas, the subject—those are objective. And so, Maya paints to paint.
Walking into the Sam Fox Art School, a place I had never been, I was both shocked and excited. Hanging on the walls, from the ceiling, and lying on the floor was student artwork. Wood, spray paint, string, and canvases were everywhere. “These students are really talented,” I thought, trying to conceal my jealousy (I wish I could paint). Maya led me into her artistic space. Every student gets a box, which they share with another artist. The small box was neat, furnished with a table in the middle, and her current artistic creation displayed on an easel to the left. Maya was working on abstraction, straying away from her typical realm of extreme realism. Of course, it was an assignment for class, and the teacher wanted her to step out of her comfort zone.
“Woah, I like this a lot. Are those chains?” I asked.
“Well, I guess they could be. Now they are chains,” she replied, the wheels turning in her brain. Abstract art at its core.
The last stop on our walk was her dorm. Living on the first floor of Village East offered many luxuries, one being tall 10-foot ceilings. The ceilings were the perfect place for Maya’s completed works. Almost every available surface was decorated with Maya’s art; it was some sort of dorm gallery. There were pieces depicting her roommates and, most excitingly, pieces that exhibited glass, aluminum, water, and reflections.I noticed this trend: these were extremely hard subjects to paint, yet here Maya was, including them in almost every piece. It all rooted back to her love for art. She wanted to push her skills, so she sought out challenging subjects to paint. It was a personal challenge. As an onlooker, I was deeply impressed by her talent and her self-motivation to improve her craft.
Each piece adhered to a process Maya had developed over years of painting. The subjects were always real people, more often than not people she was close with. The scenarios—two people in the shower or someone wrapped in plastic wrap—were also real. The combination of real subjects and extreme realism made Maya something of a photographer, capturing moments despite manipulating the final image for aesthetic purposes.
One painting, in particular, stoke with me. It was a large 6-foot by 4-foot oil on canvas of a man in a suit, grasping a Bible, and suffocated by plastic wrap. Completing the piece required many moving parts. She needed a few things: a Bible, a man in a suit willing to be wrapped in plastic wrap and remain still, and time. The process, however, is the most exciting part. Maya, a Venezuelan-born artist living in Boston, focuses on art as the act of creation. What you take away from it is entirely up to you—and that is the beauty of it.
PORTFOLIO
