The New York-based painter Maria Kreyn is a self-taught artist whose masterly canvases invite us to step into metaphysical contemplation of existence in a stream of time without beginning or end – referencing movements such as Romanticism and Baroque in a way that effortlessly binds both the historical and contemporaneous in its preternatural sway. Her uncanny investigations into the nature of being are as much informed by her grounding in mathematics and philosophy at the university of Chicago as they are by a childhood fascination with the Old Masters, and the unusual, and sometimes unsettling, atmosphere of her ideas-driven output has witnessed her exhibit across the world. In fact, eight of her paintings, based upon the works of Shakespeare, are on permanent display at London’s Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Her latest show, CHRONOS, currently exhibiting at the historic St George's Anglican Church, Venice, aims to immerse the viewer in a meditation on the material nature of time, and our fragile insignificance when faced with the terrifying power and majesty of nature. Presented by M.O.N Art Foundation, and something of a departure from the figurative work for which Kreyn is widely celebrated, the exhibition dives into the turbulent waters of the climate crisis, depicting wild storms punctuated by strange geometric shapes that reference the Orphic creation myth, in which the mythological God Chronos spawns Aether (Ether), Chaos, and a cosmic silver egg from which the entire universe is born. Here, the fiercely intelligent painter talks to House Collective Journal about unconsciously seeking out the otherworldly in embryogenesis, and tells us why there are stranger things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies.
What would you say you are seeking to find in your work, would you describe yourself as being drawn to the metaphysical?
I think there is maybe an unconscious or subconscious resonance with a type of work that I am trying to tap into – perhaps something like a spiritual space, without being too literal about it. I have always found representation in painting to be remarkably powerful, because a lot of times when you have something deeply representational in painting, it's actually pointing to an emotional landscape that's very dynamic and abstract. The Baroque period, for example, was all about creating something that doesn't actually look like real life necessarily. I mean, even with a Caravaggio, if the figures were to come out of the canvas, you wouldn't find them to be terribly naturalistic. What they actually represent is a beautiful snapshot of a ‘feeling’ of something very living that can only be made in paint. I think finding that feeling still remains the obsession for me – the creation in paint of really deep space, and a kind of portal into a world.
Would you say that you are creating works that tap into a sense of timelessness, something that is way beyond the mere contemporary?
I would say that I resonate with your latter point, because if you're just answering to your current moment then whatever you are making is dated on arrival, and, as such, becomes a matter of fashion. I think there's a way to speak to the human experience that doesn't necessarily have to have an extremely obvious timestamp, and that's not to say that my work is meant to look old or new. I actually like to think that the work is maybe as much a projection from the future as a reference of the past. I've been remixing so many different things in the paintings, ranging from the Renaissance and Baroque, all the way to things that I generate with diffusion models, and super contemporary photographs. Making art often allows for time travel, in some ways, especially if you make something that's going to outlast your own life. I still love the paintings that I loved when I was thirteen years old, and I still feel that I have a dialogue with them. The people who made those paintings are long dead, but I'm in conversation with the art in the current moment.
The exhibition in Venice takes place in a Church. What does that mean to you? Are you a spiritual or religious person?
I don't really subscribe to any ideology per se. I'm not religious, and most religions, at this point, are not terribly interesting for me. But what is interesting to me is the idea of reverent space, and these sort of blocks that we carve out in our life that are devotional. This actually isn't my first time exhibiting in a church, but it is my first time exhibiting in a functioning church, where there is mass held every Sunday, and that is kind of exciting for me – I think it is really beautiful when you have a venue that's energetically charged in that way. That's not to say that the artwork itself is by default reverent space, but I think there is a gesture towards something like that. Maybe that sense exists in my work because I find my actual studio to be such a sanctuary. My studio itself is sort of the altar that I worship at because it's my primary activity in life, and it's very meditative. It probably fills in so much of what religion would fill in for someone else, even though it's not ideological. I just spend a lot of time swirling in that space.
How do the tempests depicted in your latest works tie into the mythological figure of Chronus? What drew you to that particular mythological figure?
The storms are a departure for me from the figurative, but they're still pointing at a turbulent emotional space as metaphor. Chronus comes up in at least two different ways in the mythological landscape – one of them is in Greek mythology, which is as the father of time, and then, the other one, the one that I'm referencing, is from the Orphic mythology, which comes a little earlier. In Orphic mythology, Chronus is more like the personification of time. It's actually a far more abstract and energetic version of time, in which time itself creates three things – ether, chaos, and an egg – and from the egg the confluence of sea and sky, and the entire universe is born. But that mythology is something that only came up for me after I made many of these paintings, because a friend of mine was like, oh my God, Maria, I think you're actually tapping into a very old mythology through some of the shapes and gestures, because all of the paintings are essentially a confluence of sea and sky. I felt it was true that I had subconsciously resonated with this mythology, because what's inscribed inside of the paintings are these eggs, which are sort of referencing embryogenesis – a very violent and delicate process from which all of life then emerges.
How much would you say your grounding in philosophy and mathematics plays into your practice? And how do you feel emergent generative technologies will change the landscape of painting?
I think all of this stuff is inherently fascinating simply because we're human. It seems to me to be quite obvious to say that what we're perceiving through the prism of our five senses is actually not the full scope of life, or even what it means to be alive. With regards to studying math and philosophy, I have found it to feed very seamlessly into painting. Perhaps I wouldn't have said this as a 20-year-old dropping out of University of Chicago, but now, when I look back at the arc of the intellectual component that rides behind all the work, iIt actually makes an enormous amount of sense. I do like to anchor some of the work in poetry and literature, and, over the last few years, as I've been pressed to do more research, it's only made the experience of painting richer. For me, the painting itself is always a byproduct of an inquiry. It's like a conversation that I'm having with myself. I'm working through my own ideas and personal philosophies – processing whatever I'm needing to process through the physical act of making paintings. And that will never change for me. The further we move forward into history, and the more a machine can do, and the smaller that sliver becomes of what's actually left over for the human to participate in deeply and authentically – then that's still going to be the space that's most interesting for all of us, because that processing is the nexus of our emotional landscape.
CHRONOS, a new exhibition of monumental paintings by Maria Kreyn, is presented by M.O.N. Art Foundation and will run until 22 June at the historic St George's Anglican Church, Venice. For more information visit here
Images (top to bottom): A Lilac Storm Walks On Water; Folding Time; Chronos installation view by Francisco Russo; Egg, Fire, Crown. All images courtesy of the artist.
