crystal maes

With a BA in art and a BFA in illustration and graphic design, I work daily with color, design and typography as a professional graphic artist. A few years ago I returned to school to learn how to paint in oil, something missed in my college days. Having over thirty years of quilting and textile background many of my paintings include quilts, fabrics and ribbons–all favorite subjects of mine.

From November 2008 through March 2011 a group of painting friends and I operated “The Gallery” in Brea, California. We were able to showcase our work and open the gallery to the community through open calls with juried shows for students as well as photographers.

education

Fullerton College; 2002 – 2018
BFA Graphic Design/Illustration, June 1999; California State University, Fullerton
BA Art, June 1996; California State University, Fullerton

exhibitions

2019 City of Brea Gallery; Made in California
2017 Rio Hondo College; Detour
2016 L.A. Art Swagger
2016 – 18 AIA Art Walk
2014 Randy Higbee Gallery; Urban Beauty
2014 Soft Expressions; Quilts as Art / Quilts in Art; Solo Show
2012 City of Brea Gallery; Something Superbly Small – Pint Sized Art
2012 City of Brea Gallery; A Graduate Introspective – Featured Local Artist
2012 Whittier Art Gallery; The Spirit of Art
2011 Whittier Cultural Arts Foundation; The W2 Art Exhibit
2011 Whittier Art Gallery; In a Word
2010 Rio Hondo College Student Gallery Special Exhibit: Crystal Maes, Selected Work 2003 – 2010*
2010 Orange County Center for Contemporary Art; Santa Monica; The Art of Summer
2009 Graves Gallery; Common Splendor; Solo Show
2008 – 2011 The Gallery; as a member of the cooperative gallery I participated in seventeen shows including Sweet Tooth, Itty Bitty and Itty Bitty 2, Out of Context, Small Works, New Artists–New Works, Click, Faculty Show, Sit On It, U+2, On With the Show, as well as being the Featured Artist and showing along with six other featured artists
2008 Sarah Bain Gallery; Small Works Show
2008 La Habra Art Association Gallery; Ordinary Objects
2007 Orange County Center for Contemporary Art; By the Running Foot
2007 – 08 Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman College; Orange Open
2007 – 08 La Habra Art Association; Member’s Show
2007 Fullerton College Gallery; Women’s Work is Never Done
2006 La Habra Art Association; Solo Show
2006 – 11, 15 – 19 Orange County Fair
2006 Muckenthaler Cultural Center; Young Visionaries
2006 Anaheim Art Association; 42nd Juried Fine Art Competition
2005 City of Brea Gallery; Brea Art Association Juried Fine Art Exhibition
2005, 08, 10, 11, 12, 16 City of Brea Gallery; Made in California
2004 City of Brea Gallery; Land of the Free: Americana
2004 Muckenthaler Cultural Center; Second Biennial Orange County Juried Exhibition
2003 – 15 Fullerton College Annual Student Show
2003 – 08 La Habra Art Association; November Art Festival

publications

Jun 2018 Detour; Crystal Maes
Jun 2016 Fullerton College Entertainment Arts
Jul 2010 Santa Monica; Jeffrey Crussell
Apr 2008 – 19 Rio Hondo College; River’s Voice, Volumes 9 – 20
Oct 2007 The Artist’s Magazine; 2008 Calendar
Apr 2007 Rio Hondo College; River’s Voice, Volume 8, cover
Jan 2005 The Artist’s Magazine

awards

July 2019 Orange County Fair, Juror’s Choice
Jun 2019 AIA Art Walk, Juror’s Choice
June 2018 AIA Art Walk, Best of Show, Painting
May 2018 Fullerton College Annual Student Show, President’s Award
Jun 2017 AIA Art Walk, Best of Show, Painting
Apr 2015 Fullerton College Annual Student Show, Best of Show
Apr 2012 Fullerton College Annual Student Show, First Place
Sep 2008 La Habra Art Association Member’s Show, First Place
Apr 2008 Fullerton College Annual Student Show, Director’s Award
Feb 2008 La Habra Art Association Member’s Show, First Place
Aug 2007 The Artist’s Magazine, Finalist in the 24th Annual Art Competition
May 2007 La Habra Art Association Member’s Show, First Place
Sep 2006 Brea Art Association, Artist of the Year
Aug 2006 The Artist’s Magazine, Finalist in the 23rd Annual Art Competition
Jul 2006 Orange County Fair – Second Place, Juror’s Choice, First Place, Division Winner,
and Best of Show
May 2006 Muckenthaler Cultural Center, Second Place
Apr 2006 Fullerton College Annual Student Show, Best of Show
Apr 2006 Anaheim Art Association 42nd Juried Fine Art Competition, Second Place
Dec 2005 Brea Art Association Juried Fine Art Exhibition, First Place
Nov 2005 La Habra Art Association, Third Place and First Place
May 2005 Fullerton College Annual Student Show, First Place
Jan 2005 The Artist’s Magazine 21st Annual Art Competition, First Place, Student Division, Still Life
Nov 2004 La Habra Art Association, Third Place and Board of Directors Award, Special Award
Jun 2004 Brea Art Association, Artist of the Year

essay

This essay, written by Sheila Lynch appeared in the catalog from the show: Crystal Maes, Selected Work 2003 – 2010.

An Account of Paintings and Colors

In his celebrated work The Natural History,¹ first-century Roman historian Pliny the Elder recounts his famous tale of the power of illusion.

In Ancient Greece, as Pliny tells us, two artists were in a contest to prove which was the greater master of his craft. The first artist, pulling away the drape that covered his painting, revealed a still life of fruit that was so illusionistic birds began to flock to it, pecking at its painted grapes. Certain his talent had already won him the championship, the first artist smugly invited the second artist to pull back the drape that covered his, no doubt, inferior painting. The second artist replied, “But my painting is already uncovered. You see, it’s a painting of the drape itself.” Humbled, the first artist immediately conceded the contest to the second, acknowledging that his own painting fooled only the birds, while the second artist’s work had fooled even the painter himself. The fascination with paintings that “fool the eye” has been with us for millennia.

Crystal Maes could be both artists of Pliny’s story: the painter that delights our senses with mouthwatering compositions and the painter that makes us do a double-take in search of the boundaries between reality and invention. That Maes began painting in oils only eight years ago is astounding. Within that time not only has she produced a large body of work, but she has honed her craft to perfection. With a strong background in textiles, Maes unabashedly infuses her compositions with brilliant colors and a charming play between two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes—cat’s-eye marbles refract the black and white stripes of the tablecloth beneath them, cherry tomatoes dance the do-si-do with red and pink polka-dot fabric in toe-tapping rhythm. Maes never shies away from her joy of the decorative.

Filled with the buoyancy of Wayne Thiebaud’s and David Hockney’s seminal works and the earnestness of 17th-century Dutch still lifes, Maes’ Baroque-Pop sensibility seduces the viewer with color and pattern, then invites the eye to linger over the luscious surface and exquisite handling of paint. A single wrapped caramel—painted in ochres and violets and all the colors in between, yet no bigger than an actual piece of candy—draws from the familiar but upon closer examination becomes an explosion of abstract expressionist mark making. After being dazzled by

Crystal Maes’ ability to “fool the eye” with an illusion of objective reality, we’re left to admire the talent she shares with the second painter of Pliny’s story. You see, Crystal Maes’ paintings aren’t about beautiful objects. They are, themselves, beautiful objects.

Sheila Lynch
Art Editor
River’s Voice, A Journal of Art and Literature

¹ Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, ed. John Bostock and H.T. Riley; in the Perseus Digital Library (see Book XXXV: An Account of Paintings and Colors)

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu (7 Nov. 2010).