Artist Maria Kreyn: Sinners, Saints, Poets & Paint
Crack open my shell. Steal the pearl.
I’ll still be laughing.
It’s the rookies who laugh only when they win.
-Rumi, translated by Haleh Liza Gafori
The Spaceship
I was lucky enough to be invited to “the spaceship” which artist Maria Kreyn calls her studio in Brooklyn. It was one of her salon events; an attractive and exotic crowd—bohemian chic, a couple of celebrities were present, though they’ll go unnamed. Smoky mezcal sits on the kitchen table; I give it a try. In my periphery, someone says, “Oh yes, Maria and I met last month in Antarctica.” I grin and slip away to see the art. Maria paints in a classical spirit that I find refreshing because I just don’t see that anymore. I’m noticing some Velasquez, some Delacroix. “I’m borrowing, stealing, and remixing everything,” she later tells me in a matter-of-fact way.
The reason for the gathering is literary: her old friend Haleh just published a book of Rumi translations. There’s singing and chanting; it’s enchanting. A discussion follows, whereby a forum for ideas opens. I don’t think I’ve been to something like this in a while, then I question if I ever have.
Maria’s parents are among the guests; her father gives me some insight into her upbringing. She moved from Russia to Florida, then to Philadelphia, Texas, University of Chicago, Iceland, Norway, and France before landing in the Big Apple. “Perhaps the nomadic impulse is a bit hard to shake, but of all of the places, including many European cities, NYC seems to be the place with the most dynamic conversation and most dynamic communities,” Maria says.
Andrew Lloyd Webber Commission
A white peacock is perched up high on the wall. I don’t ask about it, but clearly, I need to take Maria’s picture with it. An adjacent painting features two dogs fighting each other atop a pale man (is he dead?), another white bird hovering in the composition. It’s oddly whimsical and oddly serious. I later learn it’s a Saint Sebastian reference from an earlier series. No shortage of drama. I think I want this painting.
A couple of years ago, after seeing her work in Vanity Fair, Andrew Lloyd Webber called her out of the blue and requested she make 8 large-scale paintings as a permanent site-specific installation for his newly refurbished Theater Royal Drury Lane. The thematic prompt was: “Maria, let’s do Shakespeare. I’d like you to make this work dangerous and apocalyptic, with your soul on the line. Webber paid her one million dollars for the commission.
Webber paid her one million dollars for the commission.
Shakespeare Cycle
Upon completing the “Shakespeare Cycle” she started developing a series of paintings initially inspired by The Tempest. This past year has basically been research and development in that direction. “After spending a decade working with the figure and the subtlety of the human facial expression—all of those emotions, and their vast range—I wanted to see and feel what happens when I zoom out, when the human presence is implied, but isn’t literally present,” she explains. “The Tempest, and really all of Shakespeare, is a study of inner and outer turbulence. ‘The Storm’ series examines the human condition from a different vantage point— from the movements and currents of nature, weather, and atmosphere. I feel like these themes of cyclical turbulence and resolution speak to our collective experience, particularly in the recent past. They certainly speak to mine. It’s all very autobiographical.”
Her work is currently on exhibit at Colnaghi: C1760 gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The exhibition presents a unique survey of works investigating the interplay of geometry and time. The collection juxtaposes various works in various media spanning over 150 years. Beginning with design innovations of Toulouse-Lautrec, moving into the Constructivists, following through to Philip Guston and renowned minimalists like Sol LeWitt and Yves Klein, the timeline concludes with Maria, the youngest living artist in the exhibition who presents an extraordinary storm painting inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
