Maia Ueoka Lynch (she/her)
has worked as a painter, illustrator, videographer, teacher, and domestic violence shelter worker, and finds that all of these things are very much interconnected. Her own personal history, along with the collective histories of her communities, shaped by geography, migration, and survival, form the underpinnings of her work.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she studied Anthropology at Barnard College, Columbia University (BA 1996) and Studio Arts at the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA 2013). She is self taught in video and worked briefly, for a few years as a commercial director primarily in Bogota, Colombia, before becoming immersed in the work with children and their mothers fleeing sexual and domestic violence, trafficking and slavery at an AAPI shelter in Los Angeles. Her work in video continues through collaborations with various artists and organizations, and is also a part of her own art making process.
Ueoka Lynch was nominated for the Dedalus Award in Painting, awarded the Für Bildende Künste fellowship in Hamburg, Germany, the Dana Pond Award, Honorable Mention in painting, and the 2016 SMFA Alumni Traveling Fellowship. In 2017, she presented a solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston presenting work made during her award travel to Japan. Her work has been featured in Asia Art Pacific, Art News, and New American Paintings’ MFA Annual.
Her paintings, ceramics and videos “raise questions about center versus periphery, unsettled identities, what it feels like to belong to multiple communities and the potential of what is unfixed. Through her work, Lynch suggests that transitional states and emotions are part of the fabric of contemporary identity. Inherent in all of her art are ideas of loss, grief, trauma, birth, renewal, dislocation and growth. The past enters into conversation with the present, bringing with it the potential for grief as well as transformation.” (MFABoston)
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Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she studied Anthropology at Barnard College, Columbia University (BA 1996) and Studio Arts at the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA 2013). She is self taught in video and worked briefly, for a few years as a commercial director primarily in Bogota, Colombia, before becoming immersed in the work with children and their mothers fleeing sexual and domestic violence, trafficking and slavery at an AAPI shelter in Los Angeles. Her work in video continues through collaborations with various artists and organizations, and is also a part of her own art making process.
Ueoka Lynch was nominated for the Dedalus Award in Painting, awarded the Für Bildende Künste fellowship in Hamburg, Germany, the Dana Pond Award, Honorable Mention in painting, and the 2016 SMFA Alumni Traveling Fellowship. In 2017, she presented a solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston presenting work made during her award travel to Japan. Her work has been featured in Asia Art Pacific, Art News, and New American Paintings’ MFA Annual.
Her paintings, ceramics and videos “raise questions about center versus periphery, unsettled identities, what it feels like to belong to multiple communities and the potential of what is unfixed. Through her work, Lynch suggests that transitional states and emotions are part of the fabric of contemporary identity. Inherent in all of her art are ideas of loss, grief, trauma, birth, renewal, dislocation and growth. The past enters into conversation with the present, bringing with it the potential for grief as well as transformation.” (MFABoston)
