ARTIST BIO

Maya Mackrandilal is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and educator living and working on Tongva land (Los Angeles). She is the child of immigrants to the US and descendant of South and East Asian indentured laborers and enslaved West Africans brought to the Caribbean as plantation labor under European colonialism. As the child of a headstrong single mother and raised within a loving village of extended family and friends, Mackrandilal’s exposure to a multitude of worldviews and experiences has deeply influenced her creative practice. She earned her BA in Studio Art with High Distinction from the University of Virginia, where she was awarded an Aunspaugh post-baccalaureate fellowship, and went on to earn her MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was a Jacob K. Javits Fellow. She has shown her artwork and presented performances nationally and has published essays, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Recent exhibitions include "What is Feminist Art?" at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art in Washington DC, "CALAFIA: Manifesting the Terrestrial Paradise" at the Armory Center for Art in Pasadena, and a multi-media collaborative performance titled Schizophrene presented at Threewalls in Chicago. She has presented at a number of national conferences, including the College Art Association, the Association of Asian American Studies, and the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association. Her writing and art is featured in the anthologies Queering Contemporary Asian American Art, Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora, and The Art of Being Dangerous. Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including The New Inquiry, 60 Inches from Center, MICE Magazine, and Skin Deep.