Maja MARX (b. 1977)
Papiervrou
NA
mixed media on board
41 x 28.5 cm
Black Book
2008
monotype
edition 1/1
59 x 42 cm
BIOGRAPHY
Maja Marx is a proponent of contemporary abstract art; approaching painting as an optical activation of surface. Her paintings are hyper-activations of surface. She starts by mapping ‘found’ compositions onto her canvas and then allows this process of transcription to self-proliferate. Once the optical field of each canvas has become alive, she uses the act of painting to literally ‘stare herself’ out onto the canvas – each layer of paint, each engagement, a response to the layers beneath. In this way, the physical act of looking is foregrounded. Surfaces are read, looked at and stared into all at once.
Marx’s most recent solo exhibition, Skin of the Eye (2023), was her sixth to be hosted with WHATIFTHEWORLD; succeeding There There (2020), Chorus (2018), Glare (2016), Block (2013) and Fold (2011).
She also participated in the group exhibition The Pheonix Runway, with WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery in Cape Town (2022), as well as in the South African Pavilion of the Venice Biennale (2013), and the ELIA Exhibition, Cuenca, Spain and Gent, Belgium (2006).
Marx is a fellow of the Ampersand Foundation (New York/ Johannesburg) and a participant in MAPS (Master of Art in the Public Sphere); an exchange between the Wits School of the Arts, Johannesburg, South Africa and the Ecole Cantonale d’art du Valais in Sierre, Switzerland.
Since receiving her MFA in Fine Art (cum laude) from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2008, her works have been included in a range of public and private collections.
In 2022, she participated in the Ekard Residency in the Netherlands.
Marx lives and works in Cape Town.