Kara Maria is a visual artist working in painting, drawing, printmaking, and public art. Her recent work addresses climate change, biodiversity loss, and their significant impact on humanity. She meticulously paints miniature portraits of threatened, endangered, and extinct animals amid fields of flying shapes, twisting lines, and swirling colors. These works celebrate the joy and exuberance of life, emphasizing the incredible variety of existence on our planet.
Maria received her BA and MFA from the University of California, Berkeley. She has exhibited work in solo and group shows across the United States at venues such as the de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University, CA; the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma, CA; the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; and the Katonah Museum of Art in New York.
Her work has received critical attention in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Art in America. In addition, Maria has been selected for numerous awards and honors, including a grant from Artadia, New York, NY; an Eisner Prize in Art from UC Berkeley; and the Masterminds Grant from SF Weekly. She has been awarded artist residencies at the Montalvo Arts Center, the Recology Artist in Residence Program, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and the de Young Museum Artist Studio.
Maria’s work is part of the permanent collections of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; the San Jose Museum of Art; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.
Born in Binghamton, NY (1968), Kara Maria now lives and works in San Francisco, CA.
“Maria’s vibrant works serve as a weirdly joyful and kinetic rendition of this impending animal death, perhaps akin to the second line in a New Orleans jazz funeral. We mourn the passing of these mysterious and irreplaceable creatures in the form of a parade – in this case, a parade of images.“ – Jaimie Baron, SquareCylinder.com, April 16, 2022