Maja Hürst

The first painting is dedicated to the Secretary Bird. Hürst was anxious to translate the posture and proportions of his large African bird of prey into her visual universe TIKA. With their featherless red-orange face and long eyelashes the wear an irritated shocked expression while engulfed by the flames. The second canvas entitled Orang Utan is dedicated to the fragility of the critically endangered orange brown freed apes, now only found on two islands in Asia. In Hürsts work, these intelligent apes react fierce and perplex to the destruction of their habitat, which would later be used for palm oil cultivation. Bats frequently flutter around the artist’s studio in Berlin. For this reason she has chosen the scared screaming Brown Long Eared Bat, who fears hotter and drier weather as well as forest fires on her third painting. Wallaby portrays three surprised and panicked black-flanked rock-wallabies, who predominantly live in the rocky surroundings of Australia, in a bush fire. The canvas Jaguar depicts the desperation and distress that the elegant wildcat native to the Americas endures. Hürst repents its important role in stabilizing ecosystems and regulating prey populations, yet facing extinction. 

Her murals as well as her studio-based artworks are especially depicting animals which transport their symbolism on humans. Hürst’s style  can be described as multi-layered, graphic, containing a symbolic value and thus create a unique radiance, eclectic in material, technique and colors. The artist interweaves insights of daily life with ecological, historic and political causes. Her visual language unites graphic formal elements, symmetries and stratified painting, which make her art works narrate  mystical stories of great importance, which hopefully can create powerful impacts.

Tania di Brita