Invited artist: MAIZA HIXSON
World Atlas, 2022
Pen and Acrylic ink on paper
12 inches x 12 inches
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World Atlas presents a circular illustration of disparate forms that surround different borders and land while assuming certain positions and poses. A central solar eye peers out and illuminates the sphere. However, when seen from a different angle, the weary gilded eye may also be interpreted as a hybrid anatomical icon that re-signifies this possible image of the earth and its inhabitants. Suggestive of circular motion and change, this speculative globe destabilizes the notion of a distanced gaze and posits a more intimate map that contests “official” boundaries and visual representations of space.
I view the act of mark-making as a durational performance of embodied, aesthetic gestures occurring in material and temporal space. Blurring geographic and fleshy borders, I cast posthuman forms and hybrid anatomies as somatic bodies striving for relevance in their respective spheres of influence. Colorful chimeric figures manifest visual choreographies of the sublime and reference imagery culled from a wide variety of sources, including digital culture, nature, medical illustration, cartoons, horror films, speculative fiction, psychedelia, and punk aesthetics.
Maiza Hixson is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, curator and Doctoral Candidate in Theater, Dance and Performance Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Hixson has exhibited and performed widely at such venues as the Little Tokyo Arts Complex in Los Angeles; the Art, Design and Architecture Museum in Santa Barbara; Highways in Santa Monica; Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York; Baltimore Contemporary; Soap Factory, Minneapolis; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in Portland, Oregon; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC; Haverford College; and many others. Her works are included in the collections of: 21C Museum, Yara-El-Sherbini, Will Oldham, Larry Shapin and Ladonna Nicolas, Joan and Kurtwood Smith, Dr. Jennifer Sorkin, Patrick Stallard, Aspect Chronicle of New Media Art, and the Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science and Technology.
Hixson received a Master of Fine Arts in Performance at UCSB in 2019 and Master of Arts in Critical and Curatorial Studies at the University of Louisville in 2005. Hixson completed Independent Curators International’s Curatorial Intensive program in New York City in 2012 and 2015. She studied Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 2001-2002. From 2015-2017, Hixson was Chief Curator of the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission and Co-Director of the Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science and Technology. She also served as Chief Curator of the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts from 2010-2015 during which time she taught and lectured at Towson University in Baltimore and University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her curatorial work was featured on the EMMY Award-winning PBS TV show “Articulate” with Jim Cotter and her curatorial projects have been presented at galleries across the U.S. She has published articles and essays on contemporary art and performance in dozens of exhibition catalogues both online and in print.
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