Erica Mao

Erica Mao is an artist living and working in New York City best known for her multi-layered, magical paintings that play with the mind’s ability to remain stable in a single reality. Mao has exhibited in galleries such as the International Print Center New York and Madison Park Gallery. Born in Maryland, Mao attended Parsons School of Design and received her BFA in 2016. She has recently completed her MFA in Visual Arts at Columbia University.

Can you tell us a bit about the process of making your work? 

I’m not really much of a planner and luckily in most of the mediums I work with it’s very easy to erase something or backtrack a move I made. Drawing, painting, and even ceramics are very forgiving mediums that take whatever shape, line, or form I feel in that moment. All that to say, I usually start without a plan or sketch, just a thought about what challenge these characters in my work are facing and how they’re going to overcome it. Then I consider how the colors will operate and what kind of atmosphere they set. With the ceramics, there’s this fun challenge of rolling out all these slabs, cutting different shapes and seeing how they’ll fit together. Somehow, I always manage to make some sort of house or dwelling. 

Erica’s studio space in Ridgewood, NY.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m always kind of working on a bunch of different things — small paintings, big paintings, drawings, ceramic slab drawings, ceramic houses. Right now, everything is geared towards being a part of the same body of work for my thesis exhibition that is (hopefully) happening in Spring of 2021. Recently, I received a work exchange scholarship at Manhattan Graphics Center so I also plan to revisit my first love, printmaking. I’ve been thinking about this Peter Doig etching of hockey players that Two Palms published, that’s the piece that’s been nagging me in the back of my head to get back into intaglio. 

We chose three of your paintings, but having been in your studio, we know you have a much more interdisciplinary practice. Can you talk about how those mediums influence each other, if they do?

Different mediums definitely influence each other, everything is connected in my mind. The ceramic houses I made were an exciting body of work that brought a different lens to the world that I’m in. I would use those houses as maquettes in certain paintings and I would also paint houses that I would then make in the future. There’s also such a satisfying feeling in exploring different materials. Feeling the grit of clay and the dry fibrousness of wood brings more of a sense of authenticity to me because these are the materials that the earth is actually made of. The “thing” that I’m representing is actually there in the material structure of the object. Also working in ceramics has made me more conscious of the surface of my paintings — thinking of the painting as an object, that the surface of the object is very important and has as much to do with the feeling you get as the picture that’s drawn there. 

What are some references you draw upon in your work? Are there any themes in particular that you like to focus on when creating?

Erica Mao, Green Man, 2020. Oil on panel, 16 x 20 inches (40.64 x 50.8 cm).

I take a lot of inspiration from hidden parts of my childhood home — dense forests, winding creeks, and wetlands that snake their way around the cookie cutter suburbs I grew up in in Maryland. These natural features emerge in my landscapes and usually act as either an obstacle or a vehicle for the protagonists in the paintings. There isn’t a lot of information that is given about the identity of these people but the situation they’re placed in is a known one of human survival. There’s also a part of me that likes to touch on the mythic or supernatural. For instance, my painting Green Man (2020) is in reference to the nature spirit that is used to symbolize rebirth and the cycle of new growth that comes every spring.

Where are some of your favorite spaces that support contemporary art or design? Now that the art has an online presence has that changed?

I think Shelter in Place Gallery is pretty cool, it’s a gallery that isn’t a room in a building but actually a small maquette. It’s made and run by Boston based Eben Haines and Delaney Dameron. Artists submit small work that goes in the gallery and they photograph it in a way that makes it look like a large scale installation in this beautifully lit gallery space. This project made me realize that work doesn’t need to be massive to be impactful. I think it’s one of the more creative ways to deal with the restrictions of the pandemic right now but nothing can really replace seeing artwork in person.

Do you have any shows coming up? Anything else you would like to share?

I'll be part of a group show titled “Minorly Magical” with my Columbia cohort at K&P Gallery up in person October 15th - 22nd then the works will be available to view online from October 23rd - November 20th. It is curated by my former classmate and lovely painter Annette Hur.

And to anyone reading this: take care of yourself and please wear a mask.

Erica Mao’s work will be included in our upcoming show “In the Cool of the Evening,” Oct. 30th – Dec. 30th. Visit her website or Instagram (@erica.mao) to see more of her work.