• In Town — Los Angeles and environs

An Artist Talk with Mara Greenshields-Ziman in her solo exhibition titled Illuminating Matter. In Illuminating Matter, Maria Greenshields-Ziman presents a body of work that delicately balances observation and transformation, inviting viewers into a
contemplative dialogue between the natural world and human perception. As a multidisciplinary artist, Greenshields-Ziman moves fluidly across mediums, yet here she distills her vision into an evocative interplay of light, material, and organic form.
Using plants and our natural environment as both subject and source, her compositions are drawn and painted onto paper and vellum, some works are then encased within illuminated light boxes. These works transcend traditional representation; instead, they function as living impressions—subtle imprints of organic matter that appear to hover between presence and absence. The translucency of vellum allows light to pass through and around each form, casting layered shadows that shift with the viewer’s movement. What emerges is not simply an image, but an experience of perception itself.
Greenshields-Ziman’s work encourages a slowed gaze, a pause, revealing the quiet complexity of natural systems often overlooked. The illuminated surfaces evoke both scientific study and poetic reverie—recalling botanical archives while simultaneously dissolving them into something ephemeral and immersive.