Maya Kramer

Maya Kramer is an artist, educator, arts consultant, and writer with nearly twenty five years of international arts experience.  In her sculptures and installations, she probes the relationship between humans, ‘landscape’, and ‘nature’ in the age of the Anthropocene.  The artist has integrated recycled materials, pollutants, and more recently weather states into pieces and tableaux that conjure beauty, estrangement, and loss.  Time, entropy, and transience also figure prominently and are at times enacted in her overture and serve as a reminder of the limits of human perspective. 

Professor Kramer has shown her work at Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Capsule Gallery, Hong Kong Art Center, Long Museum, China Art Museum, Platform Gallery, and in conjunction with the Shanghai Gallery of Art and Van Abbe Museum, among others. She graduated with a BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2000 and obtained an MFA from Hunter College in 2006. She was an NYU Critical Collaborations Fellow 16-18’ and a recipient of the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship and she participated in the 2023 Arctic Circle Residency. Her works have been featured in media such as Cobo Social, Fortune Art, Randian, and Blouin Art Info. 

In addition to her art practice, Kramer has worked as a writer, art consultant, and in curatorial capacities. She was based in New York for nine years where she worked in the curatorial department of the Guggenheim Museum and later with the notable collector David Teiger. In 2009, she moved to Shanghai and consulted with the Shanghai Gallery of Art and W Hotels. She regularly contributed to Frieze magazine and Cobo Social, and on occasion writes catalog essays. Through her various roles in the art world, Kramer has amassed a rich and interconnected body of knowledge and experience that informs her art practice and aids her in helping students develop their own work. Website: www.maya-kramer.com

Select Exhibitions

Solo

• 2018, Decoy, Capsule Gallery, Shanghai, China
• 2014, Against the Wind, Frontline Contemporary, Shanghai, China
• 2009, From Where It Springs, Truecolor Museum, Suzhou, China
   

Group

• 2022, Eco-Art Vision, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China
• 2019, The Kind Stranger, UNArt Center, Pudong, Shanghai, China 
• 2017, Extension at Sea, China Art Museum, Shanghai, China
• 2014, Unseen Existence, Dialogues with the Environment in Contemporary Art, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong, China       
• 2015, Beyond Architecture, Long Museum, Shanghai, China    
• 2010, The Third Party, Platform Gallery, Beijing, China
• 2010, There is Nothing You Can Measure Anymore, Ni You Yu, Jin Shan, Maya Kramer, Aike Gallery, Shanghai, China
• 2010, Double Infinity, Co-organized by Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven Holland and Arthub Asia, Dutch Cultural Council, Shanghai, China
   

Selected Awards/Residencies

2023       Arctic Circle Residency, Arctic Circle, International Waters

2019       Residency, Artbarn, Amaranth, PA

2016-18   Critical Collaboration Fellow, New York University, New York, NY

2003-6    Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, New York, NY

Courses Taught:

• Contemporary Art and Theory in North America and Europe
• Foundations of Painting: Painting in Practice and Theory
• Foundations of Visual Arts
• Mark Making: From Basic Drawing Skills to Contemporary Approaches to Drawing
• What is Art