Hildy Maze

Lives and works in East Hampton, NY, USA

Artist statement

My work is contemplative, driven by my desire to investigate the mind through visual images. None of us can escape the habit of projecting thoughts and concepts onto reality itself—onto what Buddhists would call “pure perception.” But through awareness of our inner, deeply ingrained conceptual biases we can open new windows onto our mind. By contrast, when mind is immersed in uncontrolled emotions and errant beliefs, we cannot see clearly, as though we were trying to peer through a dirty window. This contemplative approach to my work involves an attempt to visually describe these obscuring veils, drawing upon both my personal experience and my experience of meditation practice. I aspire to point out that silent moment, that pause, that emptiness or gap between seeing and conceptualizing, between pure perception and our mind’s projecting onto reality. Work on Paper Our hyperactive conceptual mind creates collages of thoughts and patterns, as in a dream. It tells an unrelated, illusory story: a mental collage of dependent parts creating the illusion of a whole, seamless image. But our stories and images are not solid or continuous; between each fragment and each moment, there is a gap, no matter how minute or transitory. I’ve chosen to work with collage precisely because this medium helps me convey this notion that nothing is solid, secure or independently existing . Even the self, that entity we so closely identify as “me,” is an aggregate, a collage of thoughts, emotions,...

Artwork