Maria Kalnars

Maria Kalnars is a figurative abstract artist and musician based in Sheffield, UK. She grew up in a small town in mid Wales, a child of immigrant parents. She moves between abstract and representational art. She is guided by feminist principles and these ideas frequently stem from current global events, things she’s seen and experienced, addressed both conceptually and through live drawing. Much of her work strongly links the aural and the visual e.g. rhythmic movements with complex cross-rhythms, harmonic relationships, textural variety, differing tempos and timbres. Forms emerge from the colours. Kalnars creates artworks in small collections, delivering a strong visual conversation and path of development like a set of pieces within a musical suite.
The media she uses is oil, acrylic, collage, pastel, pen, and sculptural elements often using found objects, and often mixing and combining a variety of these. She applies paint using brushes and a variety of re-purposed tools to connect surface texture, shape, light, shadow and colour, and their relationship to one another – e.g. the body in manuscript paper.
Kalnars’ influences are numerous, too many artists to mention, but amongst whom are: Paula Rego, with her figurative abstr...

MA Musicology & Gender (City University, London)

Maria learns through the creative process and has attended extra mural classes at Camden Art Centre, London. She has greatly enjoyed developing her skills through drawing and painting workshops at institutions such as the Hepworth Gallery and Museums Sheffield.

2018: PramDepot | London (Asylum Angels: Online Art Auction
2019: Great Sheffield Art Show | Botanical Gardens
2021: Cooper Gallery | Barnsley (Cooper Art Prize shortlist)
2021: D Contemporary Gallery, Mayfair, London: Threshold Exhibition
2021: Wirksworth art festival
2023: Cooper Gallery | Barnsley (Cooper Art Prize shortlist)
Maria has also designed CD Covers for Focused Silence Records, ifitisn't & kalnars/robinson bandcamp