Today we’d like to introduce you to Maya Ragazzo.
Hi Maya, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Los Angeles. I grew up in a creative household with my older sister and parents. I had a Waldorf education for elementary school which also fueled my creativity and raised my awareness of the power of your imagination. After transferring to public school, I was thrilled to find out that there was an excellent art teacher who opened up the world of art history to me and what it is to make and critique art. I made a stop motion animation in high school that almost led me down the road of film, but I stuck with fine art and wound up studying interdisciplinary sculpture and photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. After living and working in Baltimore for five years, I moved to New York where I pursued fabrication. I got heavily into digital fabrication and learned how to use laser cutters, 3D printers, and CNC routers to make sculptures and prototypes. I then found myself craving to come back to the West Coast and returned home to LA. I now work in lighting and make paintings out of my garage in Mid City.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
My relationship with art has always been a strong one. It’s been the most consistent thing throughout my life. However, there have been times where I struggled with mental health and didn’t feel that I had the capacity to make work. I am still finding what works for my practice, but I find that making paintings really helps my self-confidence and fuels my love for the medium. Dedication is key, and having something to return to regularly is quite comforting. My practice is now a place of solace, imagination, exploration, and the uncovering of new things. When I am wrestling with difficult emotions, I sometimes take a break from making work but always know that I have something to look forward to when I move past the arduous times.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My painting practice involves studying the history of human interaction in the simplest of forms. I use combinations of gestures to imply emotions, scenes, and narratives. A figure may have a pointing hand, be climbing a stair, be intertwined with another, or walking in space. All of these subtle movements are meant to let the viewer build a larger narrative and wonder the backgrounds of these reoccurring characters. My work references folk art, a movement in which simplicity in forms are rooted in cultural reflection. Often devoid of backgrounds, my characters are meant to exist with only each other, exaggerating the implications of what it means to be alone but together. My characters live in their own universe yet mirror a world that consists of sentiment, love, longing, and desire. Possibilities of figurative representations are endless and my work chooses to investigate those possibilities and turn the known into the unknown.
How do you think about luck?
I don’t consider myself to be an extraordinarily lucky person. I believe that I have had the freedom and support of family, friends, and teachers to always make art which I will always be appreciative of. I think more than luck, there is participation. I have put in a lot of work to get to where I am now, which has gotten me a fair amount of opportunities as an artist. I am proud of myself that I support myself with my job and also have the means to paint. I definitely lucked out that my apartment has a garage that I can work out of. Having a studio has been a huge part of me being able to work bigger and with oils.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://maya-ragazzo.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mayaragazzo/
