M A R I A E S T H E L A
b. 1984 Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Maria Esthela is an autistic immigrant woman and self-taught abstract artist currently settled on the unceded territory of Tiohtià:ke - Mooniyang (Montreal). She has exhibited her work and participated in residencies in Canada and abroad.
Her practice investigates the intersections of experience, identity, bodymind and spacetime through the lens of systems theory, new materialism and magical realism. Her interest in liminality, specularity and transparency are informed by her unique autistic expression and cultural fluidity.
She engages with sculpture, installation, and drawing in a non-linear exploration of emergence, immanence, paradox and entanglement within the natural world and the cosmos.
Guided by research and meditation, her practice is handmade, methodical and site-responsive. Her process is intuitive, repetitive and tactile, following the movement of thought as it expands and multiplies, revealing elusive patterns and perspectives that playfully hint at the ineffable ecstasy that intertwines with the ordinary.
She works with a range of materials that coincide in their optical properties, interpreting the language of light by arranging them into coded rhythms; a poetic proposal on the recursive nature of spacetime and the reciprocal agency of energymatter.
The abstract language she has developed seeks to evoke thoughtful lightness and emotional gravitas, drawing lines of inquiry and points of reflection that trace and transcend the realm of reason, suspending thought and elevating our attention to what lies between and beyond.