Artist Statement  
In this new series of paintings, I look to geologic process as metaphor for the evolving, shifting, and layered psyche. I begin my exploration with the view that despite a sense of stasis, nothing about our internal or external landscape is fixed. Mountains form, rivers erode, and plates shift in an ongoing cycle of tectonic activity. Similarly, with personal crisis, perceptions of the self are challenged, foundations crumble, and traumas are recorded or buried in the layers of psychological sediment. The psyche, like the earth, is in constant flux as memories and identities emerge and are submerged.

Using a range of scraping tools, I create my surfaces with stripes, gouges, and flat slabs of color as I apply, scrape away, and re-apply paint. Earlier layers are exposed and then covered up as the painting is built up and edited. The striped, textured surfaces reference the layering of identity, and the changing perceptions of self with time. Textures referencing erosion and deposition suggest sublimation, denial, the ongoing construction and destruction of the ego. Subduction, (a geologic process in which one edge of one crustal plate is forced below the edge of another), is also a rich metaphor, as areas of paint push up against each other. These shifting angled forms represent the individual's struggle to maintain a solid identity in the face of change or crisis.

I see the process of painting itself as an excavation. I dig, working to expose the truth of the painting, and to locate some truth about myself in it. I paint to create a language for things that I can't articulate, to address questions of life and meaning that don't have answers, to explore and create a language for the unknown.

One and Two-Person Exhibitions
2007    New Work: Maya Kabat and David Seiler, Mercury 20 Gallery, Oakland, California
2006    New Paintings, Minyon Studios, Oakland, California
2002    Art and Healing, Minyon Studios, Oakland, California

Selected Group Exhibitions
2006    Referencing Nature, Seattle Art Museum, Rental/Sales Gallery, Seattle, Washington
No Angst, Front Gallery, Oakland, California
Small Works/Installations, Mercury 20 Gallery, Oakland, California
Braided Lives, Seamus Berkeley Fine Art, Berkeley, CA
New Work by Gallery Artists, Mercury 20 Oakland, California
Mercury Rising, Robert Tomlinson Studio Gallery, Oakland, California
Off the Grid, ACCI Gallery, Berkeley, California
    
2005    Dialogues, Alameda Art Center, Alameda, California
Bay It, Shorebird Park Nature Center, Berkeley, California
Mixed, Off-Market Gallery, San Francisco, California
     
2004    Meditations, Los Medanos Community College, Pittsburg, California
With: Kathleen King and Carianne Mack
Grouping, Nexus Institute Gallery, Berkeley, California
Elements, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Sebastopol, California
Contemporary Abstracts, Artisans Gallery, Mill Valley, California
     
2003    Early Spring, Blow Gallery, Berkeley, California
With: Kim Brooks and Shausta Eckland
     
2000     Four in One, Art Foundry Gallery, Sacramento, California
With: George Chen, Karen Hampton and Kathy Rousso
MFA 2000, University of California Design Museum, Davis, California
     
1999    Ellen Hansen Memorial Prize, University of California, Davis, California
     
1998    Greek Landscapes , Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, Maryland

Press
 
"First Friday Art Walk", Piedmont Post, February 7, 2007
"Female Artists of Collective 9", San Francisco Chronicle (East Bay), February 11, 2005
"'Meditations' puts passion into the landscape", Contra Costa Times, April 2, 2004
"'Four in One' Fills Sacramento Gallery", Davis Enterprise, June 22, 2000

Selected Collections
 
The Hotel Adagio, (McCartan Design, Interior Designer), San Francisco, California
Martin A. Berger, Oakland, California
Rebecca Fry, New York, New York
Power Interiors, San Francisco, California
Sally Powers, Berkeley, California
Kerry E. Reichs, Washington, DC
Maya Wells, Seattle, Washington

Education
     
2000    M.F.A, University of California, Davis, California
1993    B.A., Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

Awards/Grants
     
1999    Ellen Hansen Prize for Fine Art, (Honorable Mention), University of California, Davis, California
1998    Art and the Environment, (Grant), University of California, Davis, California
1993    Comfort-Starr Prize, Oberlin College, Oberlin Ohio

Professional Memberships
     
2006-present     Mercury 20 Gallery, Oakland, California, Artist Member
Collective artist-run gallery associtated with Oakland Art Murmur, www.mercurytwenty.com