Maya Kabat: City and Place

Maya Kabat’s abstract oil paintings reference the urban landscape of Northern California, exploring relationships between architectural elements, California light, and the balance of color, line, plane, and space. Inspired originally by Diebenkorn's work, Kabat often works intensely on the edges of her canvases, incorporating the external form of the object into the internal dialogue of the piece. She also usually leaves a quiet empty space in the middle of the canvas, giving absence and ground a prioritized position usually reserved for subject and form.

Unlike Diebenkorn, however, Kabat focuses intently on the physical surface of her work, mixing colors directly on the canvas to build up the image using drywall and plaster tools. Working within a limited amount of time while the paint is still malleable, she achieves a result that represents both empty space and solid forms and perfectly balances spontaneity with structure.

In her most recent body of work, the series known as City and Place, Kabat has brought more gesture and motion into her compositions, giving them an edgy energy and strong sense of directional force. Whereas the earlier work represented visual aspects—namely the open light, soft tonality, and solid forms of California's urban environment—City and Place goes a step further, representing the experience of living in urban California in the 21st century, including its fast pace and stressful but exciting creative energy and forward momentum.