Artist to Know: Providence Printmaker Maya Stern - Inside Art with Michael Rose

Artist to Know: Providence Printmaker Maya Stern - Inside Art with Michael Rose

 

This week, the Southern Graphics Council International Conference is descending on Providence, bringing over 500 printmakers from around the country to the Creative Capital for workshops, panels, and exhibitions. Rhode Island boasts a vibrant printmaking community of its own and one local artist who is making her mark on the medium is Maya Stern. An inventive and passionate artist and educator, Stern is an artist to know.

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Raised in the state, Stern earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Rhode Island and went on to obtain her Master of Fine Arts from Syracuse University. A young artist, Stern has already achieved acclaim. In 2021, her work was the subject of a solo exhibition titled You Were There at Gallery 7 at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In 2022 she was awarded Best in Show at the competitive Four Rivers Print Biennial in Carbondale, Illinois. Her work is already in the collections of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Zuckerman Museum of Art in Dallas, Texas, the Syracuse University Museum of Art, as well as Finland’s Jyväskylä Art Museum.

 

 

From her studio in Providence’s Valley District, Stern creates works that probe family history and specifically the distortions of memory that can occur over generations. In printmaking that employs archival materials and contemporary methods, Stern has assembled a vocabulary of intimate poignancy. In one series, blue faces of her forebears look out from cyanotypes that explore the realities of lost, misplaced, or destroyed images of loved ones in the digital age.

 

In addition to being an accomplished studio artist, Stern is a passionate educator. Currently, she teaches at Lesley University in Cambridge as well as at Roger Williams University in Bristol. Previously, she instructed students at URI, Syracuse, and Providence CityArts for Youth. In her work with college students, the artist brings to bear an enthusiasm for technique and strict observance of foundational standards of printmaking. Stern takes her role as an educator seriously and is a fierce advocate for the students she instructs.

 

 

Asked about her pedagogical philosophy, Stern responds, “As an instructor, I emphasize contemporary approaches to traditional printmaking practices. This involves teaching the history of each medium, while challenging students to consider incorporating this history into investigations of contemporary culture. Emphasizing experimentation and discovery through conceptual development, my goal as an instructor is to impart technical and material understanding to each student. I aim for students to see the true potential behind the medium — and themselves as creators — while finding ways to push the boundaries of technique to their benefit.”

 

In her own art, Stern also pushes boundaries, melding traditional and contemporary forms of printmaking. She also goes further, forming linkages between the fields of printmaking and fiber arts. As a result, the work she creates benefits from this interplay. There is a quality of mystery to her art that becomes intriguing to explore, and at least some of that is due to the skillful way in which she employs media.

 

 

A loom is a major element of Stern’s studio practice. Explaining her cross-disciplinary approach, Stern says, “I am a printmaker by training and have grown to be rather obsessed with process - fiber really encourages this way of producing. It’s a very flexible medium that almost demands experimentation - there is something about moving backwards and forwards with the material to develop a larger image that I’m really drawn to. I’m very excited by its seemingly limitless potential and possibility.”

 

The rhythmic movements implied in her work on the loom come across in her artwork, which enjoys an unusual elegance of execution and narrative that many fellow artists would envy. Stern’s work is also thoroughly contemporary and based on ideas about history, memory, media, and loss that resonate well beyond her personal experiences. In some pieces in her studio, text appears in tangled masses of fiber, challenging Stern’s viewers to unwind meanings as they might have to in probing their own familial myths and legends.

 

Asked about her future goals, Stern is ambitious, saying, “Ultimately, I hope to never stop growing as an artist or educator. I hope to be that change everyone wishes to see within academia. To say the least, I’m not a quitter.”

 

 

A visionary printmaker and professor, Stern is in the early stages of a career that will surely be filled with engaged art-making and impactful teaching. The fusion of these two halves of her artistic life, as well as the varied nature of her own studio practice, will doubtlessly be fruitful. As printmaking comes into focus in Rhode Island, Stern is an artist that locals should be proud to call their own.

 

Learn more about Maya Stern at www.mayastern.com and follow her on Instagram at @ma.ya.stern