Sally Maier

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Sally Maier (born 1985, Perth Amboy, NJ, United States) is an designer who mainly works with media art. By emphasising aesthetics, Maier presents everyday objects as well as references to texts, painting and architecture. Pompous writings and Utopian constructivist designs are juxtaposed with trivial objects. Categories are subtly reversed.

Maier creates situations in which everyday objects are altered or detached from their natural function. By applying specific combinations and certain manipulations, different functions and/or contexts are created. By taking daily life as subject matter while commenting on the everyday aesthetic of middle class values, she seduces the viewer into a world of ongoing equilibrium and the interval that articulates the stream of daily events. Moments are depicted that only exist to punctuate the human drama in order to clarify our existence and to find poetic meaning in everyday life.

Her works are characterised by the use of everyday objects in an atmosphere of middleclass mentality in which recognition plays an important role. With the use of appropriated materials which are borrowed from a day-to-day context, she often creates work using creative game tactics, but these are never permissive. Play is a serious matter: during the game, different rules apply than in everyday life and even everyday objects undergo transubstantiation.

Her works sometimes radiate a cold and latent violence. At times, disconcerting beauty emerges. The inherent visual seductiveness, along with the conciseness of the exhibitions, further complicates the reception of their manifold layers of meaning. Sally Maier currently lives and works in Baltimore, MD, USA.