Maria Cassidy studied at Loughborough University School of Art and Design achieving a First Class Honours Fine Art BA in 2010. She has recently exhibited at the Domino Gallery in Liverpool as part of the Independent Liverpool Biennial and also at the Wirksworth Arts Festival in Derbyshire.
Maria’s practice explores both the existing and the surreal in an amalgamation of imagery. Through both two-dimensional and three-dimensional collage and assemblage she dissects familiar imagery and reconstructs the fragments to form new narratives. As an avid collector of postcards she explores the placement of these visual facades alongside images documented daily throughout the media. She is both politically and historically motivated to fabricate works exploring both the old and the new. Maria’s work is a delicate weaving of events and places, allowing the viewer to delve deep into the layers. Similarly to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s theory of the Rhizome, her work does not create a closed picture but an idea with endless possibilities.
Resembling the work of visual artist Hans Peter-Feldman, Maria’s small postcard sculptures are re-presenting existing images and text. The small sculptures use fragments of postcards to create a surreal narrative with a complex happening hidden from view. Through the use of mirrors we are given a glimpse of a disagreeable truth, a reminder of the reality we live in. By creating slits in the postcards and slotting the fragments together the images are not permanently joined together and have the possibility to be taken apart.The two-dimensional collages display a simplified collage technique as the fragments are arranged onto a single plane. These works are often humorous and surreal with an occasional unpleasant truth realised on closer inspection.
