Maria Maaneskiold (b.1994) Is a Norwegian artist Based In Oslo. She works mainly with illustration and painting, but recently also with sculpture and perforative work. Her view often merge personal life experiences with a more magical, imagined reality, and alludes to a lonely escapism. This connects to the recurring topic of lost identity and use of exploratory self portrait, that often occur in the work.

 

 

As a child I watched cartoons obsessively, and would get incredibly disappointed in life when someone took the TV away from me to watch something else. The constant sounds of annoying, exaggerated voices drove my mom insane, but I was so immersed in the bubble that I didn’t really care that it put the whole house in a tense mood. In that world, I didn’t exist. And it was glorious. I was just a sponge. Nothing more. 

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I still often am a sponge. The world is too intense for me to actually be present in. So I escape into my own head, where the lines between physical reality and my imagination are blurred. Through creation I twist the sponge and open up the space between the two. The result is a new, more fantastical place, where I therapeutically learn how to live with, and be both at the same time. 

 

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Asia representation, Streams gallery.

Norway representation, COLLECTIVE Oslo.