ARTIST
Maja Hürst
Switzerland
Maja Hürst was born 1978 in Zurich, Switzerland. Aside from Switzerland, she was raised in Egypt, as well as Germany and is a self acclaimed lifelong world citizen. Since 2006 she has been living and working in Berlin and Zurich, with frequent stays at her place of longing Rio de Janeiro. At the age of only ten years old she applied her first paste-up. Her first graffiti followed ten years later and she started to use different tags. Eventually she stuck to her visual imagery named “TIKA”, which is derived from the word antibiotics (German Antibiotika), a remedy that has saved many and also her life several times.
Hürst researched the reduction of shapes and elaborated the essence of expression and posture. She first applied it to human broad nosed characters and later transferred it to animals depicting their symbolism on humans. It resulted in her powerful signature visual language one can now find on studio- and public work alongside her broad cultural influence that emerges in her visual universe TIKA. It catalyzes everyday life occurrences, political and mystical stories as well as the effects of climate change on nature and the environment.
Since the early 2000s Hürst has been exhibiting solo and group shows, participating at festivals and enriching cities all over the world with her large scale murals. Hürst’s TIKA has been presented in Europe at the Kunsthaus Zürich or Museumsquartier in Vienna, as well as worldwide in the Bangkok Art and Culture Center or in cities as Cape Town, Mumbai and Atlanta. Alongside her active work as an artist she had refined her practices with studies at the Zurich University of Art and Design until 2004. In Berlin she has set up a self-constructed studio between 2017 and 2019, which serves as her creative space.
