“For me, abstract contemplative drawing is a way of navigating my mind and it remains the fundamental vehicle of my practice,” says Hildy Maze. Her latest work displays her physical process in clearly visible gestural line, brushstrokes, and oil stains. Her active process is even revealed in her title for the artwork folded & placed on top of each other (below) that describes the action involved in the manipulation and placement of the layered collage materials that form the piece.

Hildy’s contemplation appears in her painting titled, as the earth is poisoned so am I, a large 72 x 84 inch mixed media oil painting on canvas that came directly from the artist’s meditative practice. As Hildy stated, this painting is “based on the principles of heaven, earth and human. The first space is heaven, basic, complete space. Earth is in response to that and the human principle occupies this space. When relating to the earth principle as a response to vast space a sense of grief took over contemplating the ways humans have poisoned the earth.”

Although Hildy Maze was born in Brooklyn and educated at the Pratt Institute, she characterizes her “genuine education” as beginning with the study and practice of Tibetan Buddhist meditation, Shambhala art and culture, Dharma Art, brush stroke meditation practice, and Ikebana Japanese flower arranging.

After 12 years of living in New York City and working in her studio, Hildy relocated to East Hampton, New York to live near the bay and Atlantic Ocean, where she feels very connected to the sand beaches and sea gulls.

It’s been during the last several years that Hildy Maze’s work has involved simple paper. She says, “paper has an organic environmental quality. It responds immediately to causes and conditions, is impermanent, meaning it ages, becomes fragile, is affected by light, yet will remain as those things we search for and cherish, possibly in the attic or basement, an archaeological site, or a memory. It is the nature of all things to decay yet remain.”

These new works on paper display Hildy’s subject and process as pathway to intellectual and contemplative work and artistic production.

Hildy Maze has exhibited her work in galleries in New York City, in Europe, and in Beijing, China. Locally she has exhibited in Poughkeepsie and the eastern end of Long Island, including an invitational at Guild Hall. Her work is in several private collections in the U.S and Europe.

The artist Hildy Maze has a vast body of work that you may view on her website HildyMaze.com