Maya Hayuk Artist Lecture from 9-30-08

Maya Hayuk's work at first had me less than thrilled as she paraded some snapshot photographs in a quickly paced slideshow set to music. It was standing room only and each picture showed for at most a few seconds, so even if I found a particular one intriguing it snapped off the screen before I could critically assess it. It seemed throughout the whole presentation her interest lay much more in setting the correct music to the slide show than allowing us to truly view her work. She invited the crowd to shout questions when she was into the third slide show, but it's hard to formulate much around a flash of an image.
Her work began to intrigue me when she stepped away from straight photographs and started showing her paintings. I learned that she had done a lot of music photography, so setting the slide show to a rhythm had a bit more meaning. The display of her paintings to us through progress photos showed not only the rhythm inherent in the finished pieces, but also the beat to which they were made. Her brightly colored patterns develop in very rhythmic stages (as seen through the photographs at least) which was fascinating since she described her process as "smoking cigarettes and staring at the wall asking me what it wanted me to do." Using such bright, and sometimes fluorescent, colors gave the work a very psychedelic feel, which I personally like despite it sort of being looked down upon in the art world as being kitsch. Her work exudes an exuberant energy that combines graphic design with intense spirituality in an aesthetically pleasing way.