Artist Statement

Maya Dixon’s work explores Black female autonomy, collective memory, survival, and resilience. Rooted in sculpture, video/performance, drawing, and installation, Dixon approaches making as both ritual and rebellion, referencing histories in order to imagine alternate futures. Using materials such as gourds, raffia, nylons, and fur or hair, Dixon constructs vessel-like forms that echo the body’s resilience and fragility. These forms reference ancestral traditions of making and spiritual labor, linking the protective and the sacred. Through video, Dixon traces how resistance takes shape through my character Liberty, and how cultural symbols can be subverted and reimagined into expressions of freedom and collective power.

Biography

Maya Dixon is a New York–based multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, video, drawing, performance, and installation. Drawing from her Indo-Afro heritage, Dixon reinterprets cultural symbols to examine Black female autonomy, collective memory, survival, and resilience. Her practice approaches making as both ritual and rebellion, engaging ancestral traditions to imagine alternate futures.

Maya earned her BFA from The Cooper Union in 2022 and her MFA in Sculpture/Expanded Practice from Columbia University in 2025. She is a 2026 resident at Smack Mellon and a 2026 AIM Fellow at The Bronx Museum.