Focusing primarily on the figure and landscapes, Ma’ayan is an oil painter whose work bridges realism and abstraction. With impulsive applications of color and varied opacity she begins to layer her imagery. She changes her mind, redirects a stroke and moves throughout the painting like a dance. Shapes appear then disappear; images from earlier strokes remain, underscoring a newer gesture, another focus, creating a visual transparency with movement and depth. This process of working through the material to find the taproot—the true source of the subject – is what she enjoys most.

Ma’ayan has been exhibiting nationally for the past eight years. She has shown at the National Academy of Design in NYC, Sundance Gallery in BridgeHampton, NY, Baisden Gallery in Tampa FL, Cima Gallery in West Palm Beach, FL, the Richard James Gallery in Charleston, SC and Jules Place in Boston, MA. An award winning artist, her work is in numerous public and private collections. She is the recipient of the Marchutz Study Grant where she studied in France and the McDowell Travel Grant, which had her traveling and painting extensively throughout Europe. She has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Santarella Museum and Gardens and most recently from the Ragdale Foundation.

The artist states, “Searching for truth, I do not try to depict the real, for details are not so important to me. Instead I seek to find the light source from within; in doing so I create an intimate, sensory experience, one that captures the spirit of the subject. I invent a place where the eye and the imagination can wander, finding truth in the balance between what is necessary and what is left to the imagination. I isolate beauty.”