Maia Martin is from New Zealand and her love of art began in high school. At that time, she painted her desk at home in very bright colours with large, stylised flowers all over, looking very hippy like! She was encouraged by her art teacher to pursue a career in art and her first job after school was as an airbrush artist, which she still uses in some artworks today. Over the years art became her creative outlet as her family grew and while studying psychology at university later in life, she did a minor in art. Maia has been well known for interior decorating with Feng Shui, running workshops and courses, authoring books, and having her own segment on television. Maia and her husband decided to leave that busy lifestyle behind and move to Australia. Maia then devoted herself to spirituality and health using Yoga, Qigong, meditation, colour healing, sound healing, and energy work. Maia is a trained art therapist, studied mandalas with a Tibetan Lama, and has completed an art course through the Milan Art Institute. She has been teaching the above for over 30 years and her passion for sharing her knowledge has resulted in running retreats in Bali and workshops in Queensland, Australia to inspire, uplift, and help others to enjoy the passion for art, colour, sound, and energy work.
Maia’s art inspirations are, Claude Monet for the colour, luminescence, and light in his paintings; Australian artist Peter Laverty, for his abstract watercolours, which also contain white space and light; Cy Twombly for his colour, simplicity, white space and often writings on his paintings; and Asian artworks for their simplicity, serenity, and white space. Maia uses these aspects of colour, simplicity, light, and luminescence in her own artworks.
Maia’s process is mixed media where she uses inks, acrylics, pastels, charcoal, oils, and sometimes collage. She loves creating watery looking acrylic or inks that have a lot of white space adding luminosity and freshness to a painting. As Maia is painting intuitively, she allows the painting to evolve and is often surprised at what happens on the canvas or the watercolour paper upon completion. Every painting created by Maia has been imbued with ritual, ceremony, chants, and sometimes writings of positive emotions either underneath the paint or on view throughout the painting to enhance the finished work. It has been proven by scientists that just one positive word can change our entire DNA, so Maia hopes her art stirs the divine within, inspiring the spirit with love, peace, joy, and hopefully changing the DNA. An astrologer once told her it was time to bring the divine within, out - it took years of pondering this statement, but she now sees that anything beautiful is Divine and can inspire people with peace, love, and joy, helping to change the world.
Maia has a studio with nature views encompassing magnificent trees and birdlife that inspire her and her life. As her family are all grown and have flown the nest, she now devotes her days to her spirituality and art while living life with her husband and two beautiful cats – a Himalayan girl and a Ragdoll boy. Maia says, “Every day is an art day!” Maia and her photographer husband’s dream is to move to an outer rural area, surrounded by inspiring nature, while having a large studio / workshop space / gallery for them both while continuing to run workshops and retreats for those wanting to be uplifted and inspired in life.
Thank you for viewing Maia’s joy and passion in life. She hopes there is something that inspires happiness and beauty in you. Blessings!