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Designer
  • Artwork
  • Profile
  • Exhibitions
  • Interview
Maja Beattie
Bath Spa University (BA Honours in Fine Art / 2010)
  • Freddie
    Size (H x W x D): 75 x 100 x 4 cm
    £800.00
  • Becky
    Size (H x W x D): 75 x 100 x 4 cm
    £800.00
  • Maja and Di
    Size (H x W x D): 100 x 70 x 4 cm
    £800.00
  • Charity Shop Scarf
    Size (H x W x D): 110 x 125 x 4 cm
    £1,000.00
  • Cornish Migrants
    Size (H x W x D): 70 x 30 x 4 cm
    £150.00
  • Berlin Drawing 1
    Size (H x W x D): 42 x 30 x 1.5 cm
    £100.00
  • Too Cool
    Size (H x W x D): 100 x 120 x 4 cm
    £800.00
  • Lost
    Size (H x W x D): 42 x 30 x 1.5 cm
    £100.00
  • Live to get Radical
    Size (H x W x D): 100 x 75 x 5 cm
    £800.00

Profile

Maja Beattie is a Bristol based artist who's work documents the society that surrounds her. With an innate fascination of people, her subject matter surrounds portraiture and traces of human behaviour on society's landscape. Using multi-layered oil painted surfaces Beattie creates an eerie depth within the traditional confines of portraiture. Heavily saturated tones mirror the energy of the youths painted, while cultural references such as street art, fashion and music infiltrate the images. These cultural experiences also construct much of her drawing work. Using line drawing Beattie creates illustration pieces that comment on the popular culture that forges a social environment.

Exhibitions

SHOP FLOOR, Group exhibition, Dartmouth Avenue Studios, Bath, March 2009.

PEPPER YOUR LEOPARD, solo show, Porter Cellar Bar, Bath, November 2009.

97 MILES WEST, Group exhibition, The Old Truman Brewery, Bricklane, London, July 2010.

IMPROMPTU, Group exhibition, Walcot Chapel, Bath, January 2011

THE BATH BURP, Group exhibition, featured artist in The Bath Burp Magazine, Bath, March 2011.

OPEN STUDIOS, open exhibition in BV Studios, Bristol, September 2011

NEW VISIONS, Group exhibition, The Grant Bradley Gallery, Bristol, January 2012

Interview

What is your favourite film of all time?

Into the Wild, it's beautiful and harrowing.  It strangely makes me want to go to alaska!

What music are you currently listening to and why?

At the moment I'm listening to a bit of Burial, Archangel.  Currently I can't beat a bit of melodic grime: Hudson Mohawke, Jai Paul, Gold Panda and for a great collaboration Annie Mac.

Which living artists do you most admire and why?

For figuaritive work it has to be Franz Gertsch and Marilyn Minter for their vibrant, glossy and fascinating painted surfaces.  Gerhard Richter has a wonderful narrative in his paintings that I admire and a sense of falling into a historical chronical.  Much of the 1960's assemblage and pop artists such as Peter Blake and Robert Rauschenburg have been very important for me in terms of engaging the culture of the time in their work.  You gain such a strong sense of their social situation that they make work in.

Which deceased artist do you most admire and why?

I love the German painter Otto Dix.  His style was gritty, grotesque and a little uncomfortable but his paintings are impossible to look away from, they are uncanny and fascinating.

Which exhibition that you have visited made the greatest impact on you and why?

The Painting of Modern Life that featured at the Hayward Gallery in 2007.  It was an amazing collaboration of fantastically talented painters that documented their surroundings, it changed the way that I thought about painting.

What is the question you get asked most frequently about your work and how do you answer it?

What makes you choose the people that you paint?  I am always photographing people, I choose which images to translate into paint by which ones excite me.  If the subjects make me laugh, or are particulary over the top/ arrogant.  The kind of person that would provoke a reaction from a viewer.

What / who inspired you to be an artist?

My mother, she is a talented artist and once made a spider that was larger than me as a five year old, I thought that was very cool.

Can you tell us about where you make your art and what if any the significance of this location is?

I make my art at BV Studios in Bristol which is a building made up of roughly 300 artist, illustrators and graphic designers.  This is a brilliant creative hub, the constant conversation with other artists fuels my ideas and motivation.

What do you like most about being an artist?

Constantly making, having a really active mind but in quite an obscure way!

What is your greatest achievement as an artist to date?

Being selected for the New Visions Exhibition at the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bristol.

What are your plans for the coming year?

To boldly tackle the exhibition scene in Bristol and to make enough of a body of work for my first solo exhibition as a graduate.