Maria’s work is fueled by an obsession with celebrity, pop motifs, media in all formats, aesthetics, excessive consumption and the seductive promises that these symbols offer. She confronts wealth inequality, racial & gender stereotyping and her own disillusionment with the American dream as a first-generation Latinx artist. As part of her practice, she collects high- and low-end art materials and reassembles them with organic, abstract forms and feminine signifiers - reclaiming these once familiar material goods to form objects with new value and meaning. Through a process of attraction and repulsion, she satisfies her personal consumerist desires, achieving a sense of empowerment and shaping her identity in a hyperconnected and materialistic society.
Maria Liebana, (b. 1978, Paterson, NJ) lives and works in New York. She is a recipient of 2018 and 2020 Queens Council of the Arts New Work Artist Grant and attended Vermont Studio Center and Pickwick Independent Press residency programs. She is a Board Member and Education coordinator of Local Project Art Space in Long Island City. Her work has been exhibited nationally at Field Projects, Trestle Gallery, ICA in Portland, ME and Local Project Art Space.