Sylvia Maier

Malin Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of recent work by the Brooklyn-based artist Sylvia Maier. Featuring a series of large-scale figurative paintings, the works in About Sangomas and Soothsayers and Mischief depict the environs of the Flatbush and Prospect Park areas of Brooklyn where the artist lives and works - powerfully evoking the unique ethnic and cultural plurality of her community.

Many of the paintings feature friends and neighbors who sat for the artist, and the works are imbued with intense psychological complexity and occasional phantasmagorical elements. Maier combines a naturalistic approach to figuration with tones of magic realism. Working extensively with live models, Maier applies classical sensibilities regarding form, composition and the rendering of light to contemporary - often intensely personal - subjects. A recurring theme throughout the exhibition is the artist’s engagement with the Haitian-American community of Flatbush and its diasporic culture.