Maria Mediratta selected as first artist for the AGW’s Emerging Artist Residency
The Art Gallery of Windsor is excited to announce that Windsor-based artist Maria Mediratta has been selected as one of three artists that will complete a residency in 2022! Maria will create new works of art, onsite at the AGW from March 1st, through May 30th, 2022.
Maria Mediratta (she/her) is a 25 year old artist and educator currently based in Windsor, Ontario. Primarily, she is a print, zine, illustration and mail artist playing with the tension between the virtual and the tangible world. She holds an MFA in Visual Arts (2021) and a BA in Visual Arts, Communication, Media & Film (2018). She has also been working in Windsor’s Arts and Culture sector for just under five years. Maria has been contracted by the University of Windsor, The Greater Essex County District School Board, Vanguard Youth Arts Collective, and more recently, Artcite Inc.
Artist Statement
I am a mixed-media artist making illustrations, prints, zines and mail art as a practice of self-care, connection, and communication. My work plays with the tension between the virtual and tangible worlds we encounter every day. Illustration, collage, watercolour, and printmaking are my favourite ways of communicating and I actively use them to participate in artist exchanges and collaborative projects. My creative process also includes quick sketches, field notes, foraging, and collecting, which all relate to documenting my thoughts in different environments.
I often use a combination of these processes to reflect on moments in time where I am thinking about the relationship between landscape and the digital sphere, and how physical spaces can be extensions of mental space. I work intuitively, linking colour, texture, and balance to what I experience in my environment and in my mind at the time. Some works are minimal while others are more complex to show the ever-changing nature of one’s mindset, environment, and the complexity of the tension and in-between feeling. I often use a square format to reference the window, the pixel and the grid. While I typically opt for sharing work and conversation with others in physical space, I have shifted to a stronger reliance on the virtual given the global stresses over the last couple years.
About the Residency
Three emerging artists from Windsor-Essex are set to complete a 3-month residency at the Art Gallery of Windsor over the course of 2022. The AGW Emerging Artist Residency is a paid opportunity for early-career artists in Windsor-Essex who want to learn, grow, develop, and show their art while engaging with the public in a series of community programs. In addition to creating new works of art in the AGW Education Studio, the artist will create digital content and install an off-site window solo exhibition at the Dry Goods Gallery, at 1012 Drouillard Road, in Ford City.
This program is generously sponsored by the Windsor Essex Community Foundation.
