Our Secret Auction Artists: Maia Regis
Here at Art on a Postcard, we are always so grateful for the extreme generosity of our artists not only for donating a postcard-sized work of art to help us raise money for The Hepatitis C Trust, but for the amount of time that they set aside to support us.
This year we are delighted to be hosting our exhibition at WeWork in Devonshire Square. WeWork provides beautiful, collaborative work spaces offering ambitious businesses the space, community and services they need to thrive. Taking inspiration from WeWork we decided to meet up with some of the 170 artists who kindly donated work to this year’s Secret Auction to discuss their studio spaces and how it influences their practice.
We met with exciting artist Maia Regis to discover what makes her studio so special.
Artist Bio:
"I want to transform the canvases into living beings, into visceral surfaces. They have to be fed from chance, traces of work, dirt, cuts and seams. This year I used paper glued on canvas, coffee bags, old hessian postbags, ancient moth eaten French embroideries, and Sicilian embroidered white tablecloths. An unconventional and irregular canvas link to smells, noises, dialogues... It adds a cinematic feeling to it and the matter is for tactile sensations. What I’m looking for in my work is for it to be the most full of life possible. I need to work on a large scale, so that painting becomes a physical act. That’s where I feel the more confident, the freer. I like to navigate in troubled waters, between the real and the imaginary. Ambiguity for me is the key to a lively work."
How would you describe your studio?
A mess. Paint, pigments, random utensils, and the canvas I’m working on lying on the floor. Somewhere to get mud and dirt in.
How does your personal environment affect your creative practise?
It affects my practice because I take inspiration from some things that surround me, from real life. I love Southern countries popular street markets atmospheres. In London I’ve been very inspired by Brixton’s street markets...
What makes a good space to create art in?
The most important for me is to have lots of space where I can work on different paintings all at once. A space that helps you develop your own visual language.