Maria Kubysh

Statement

Maria Kubysh is a Canadian painter, video artist, and filmmaker currently based in Berlin, Germany. Born in Russia, Maria lived in Kazakhstan, Canada, and the USA. After a decade-long career in User Experience design and filmmaking, she had recently made painting her main expressive medium. She has received a Canada Council for the Arts grant for an art residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and an Ontario Arts Council travel grant. Most recently, Maria participated in a three month-long residency at Pilotenküche, Leipzig, where she had explored intersections between painting and installation.

GlogauAIR Project

Some concrete questions I’d like to think of GlogauAir include the following. Before a language takes grasp of one’s experience, what is the initial visual “alphabet”? What is visible before there are words to describe it? Once the words enter the picture, do we see the same as before? Are there universals in transmitting meaning? Can visual symbols, colours, shapes hold consistent meaning across cultures? Is there such a thing as a universal visual protolanguage? When looking at ancient written systems and decorative arts. What are the symbols used and the meanings embedded? How do they intersect with heraldic and other “official” iconography systems? These communicate grandeur, importance all over the world and history.

Then there are the written marks. There is an enigma in the sway writing holds on the observers. It calls for interpretation and “reading”, even when reading is impossible. Like looking at writing in a foreign language. One cannot help but wonder what is the content of the mysterious markings.

Also, I’d like to work to evolve my process and sketch more before I create a painting. My usual process is quite fluid. It revolves around ideas of playing and repetition. The painting materials I use are simple and unfussy. Canvas, paper, acrylic paint and a plethora of pencils, pastels, and crayons. I let materials, space, collaborators, and subconsciousness lead part of the way. I make the first step, usually with a colour shape. Then another step in response to the first. Weighing the lay of the image, the composition. Stabilizing the tensions between colours and empty and filled spaces. All have to balance in harmony. The image discovers itself through this process. Like an archaeological excavation. Or brick by brick construction.

The final picture bears the marks of its creation, the trials and errors that came with the search. I leave a lot of the surface bare to stress the rawness of this process. The risks taken. The fragile balance of freshness and thinking through.

GlogauAir will lend me space and time to think through and develop these ideas. As well as get inspired and germinate future ideas and possibilities.

CV Summary

EDUCATION

• 2009-2012 Bachelor of Science, Science and Technology Studies. York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2004-2008 Bachelor of Design, Graphic Design and Integrated Media. OCAD University, Toronto, ON, Canada

GRANTS, AWARDS & RESIDENCIES

• 2020 Pilotenküche international artist residency, Leipzig, Germany
• 2014 Feature film programmer, MISAFF film festival, Mississauga, ON, Canada
• 2012 SIM international art residency Reykjavik, Iceland
• 2012 Self-directed screenwriting residency Berlin, Germany
• 2012 Ontario Arts Council travel grant
• 2011 BANFF Centre for the Arts visual art residency
• 2011 Canada Arts Council travel grant
• 2007 Patricia Watt Award, OCAD
• 2006 Mark McCain travel scholarship, OCAD
• 2006 George A. Reid Award, OCAD
• 2006 Millennium Excellence Award, OCAD

Gallery