Maria Marshall

About the artist

Maria Marshall is a conceptual artist who explores the fine line between the autobiographical and the imaginary on the subject of "Thought".

The exploration of these themes has been her main focus since the creation of her seminal breakout ¨Shadow works ‘When I Grow Up I Want to be a Cooker’ from 1998 and ‘President Bill Clinton, Memphis November 13, 1993’ from 2000, which were instrumental in establishing her voice as a leader in her contemporary field.

Marshall experienced post-natal depression and systematically applied ‘shadow work’ to her oeuvre by bringing individual dreams into the active experience through emotionally charged, immaculately conceived films and, in this process, dispelling those associated fears. This work has continued with creating an alter ego character, ‘Thought’, who has developed inscapes with a blindfolded series of paintings and drawings, descriptions of what the mind looks like, mirror pieces, and poignant references to thought.

Originating from an Iraqi Jewish family that emigrated due to persecution to India. Marshall was born in India and raised in London, United Kingdom, currently based in Mexico City.

Marshall’s work to date has explored the workings of the mind. ‘Shadow work’ describes her seminal break/out film ‘When I grow up I want to be a cooker” a film of her son smoking and other films to date. Highlighting invisible anxieties by bringing them into the active experience and witnessing a ‘Release’.

The ‘Thought series’ of performative PAINTINGS references film. In each investigation there is a resolution to reach an energetically high vibration and ‘Release’ from the emotionally heavier darker work demonstrated in the films.

‘Blindfolded series’, references film with repetition and movement, influenced by Muybridge, created through a series of drawings while blindfolded, in order to have a direct link with the subconscious. The raised sculpted line encourages the blind to trace the contours. The large format appear as abstractions, the figurative content subtly hidden emulating the mind beyond the surface of the body.