Maria Kozak -- The Flex

Maria Kozak
Pastel and ink on paper
12 × 9 1/2 in

Drawing inspiration from the occult and esoteric orders, Maria Kozak's recent paintings and drawings begin with digital sketches where the artist intuitively manipulates two color fields until desirable forms emerge. The central subject of this body of work are the cyclical, irresolvable interactions that arise from the classic dichotomies of the human condition.

Maria Kozak splits her time between New York City, Upstate New York and Warsaw, Poland. Her family emigrated to the US in 1983 at the height of martial law and she grew up navigating the two cultures. Her drawings and paintings are intuitive expressions of her inner world based loosely on society, nature and the sublime. They are about the absurdity of being a human, the dark comedy and the parts of the unconscious mind that we normally try to hide or ignore. There is always a duality present in the process whether it's a battle between darkness and light, control and surrender, stillness and movement, or the real and artificial.

Kozak's work is found in collections nationally and abroad. She has been featured in Artsy, the Wall Street Journal, Cool Hunting and Paper magazine. She has shown most recently at LETO Gallery in Warsaw, Dreamsong in Minneapolis and The Detroit Public Library. She was awarded a NYFA /NYSCA Grant and a Schusterman Foundation Fellowship for her work in emerging technology. Kozak has a Master’s degree in painting from the New York Academy of Art and is an alumni of NEW INC, the New Museum’s incubator for art + technology. She is also currently the Editor-at-large of Przekrój, Poland’s oldest culture magazine