Maja Hürst artist Berlin

Maja Hürst

Zurich / Switzerland

Maja Hürst is the artist behind the visual universe TIKA. In the late 90s she started to spray letters, which led to a search for a figurative form of expression and in 2003 she met the foundation of TIKA with her well-known big-nosed characters. Today Maja Hürst tells figurative to abstract stories with her visual language TIKA, searching for the essence of expression and emotion in the overlapping of colours and forms. In March 2020 she worked for the first time with the URBAN NATION Museum. […]

Biography / Maja Hürst

Maja Hürst is the artist behind the visual universe TIKA. In the late 90s she started to spray letters, which led to a search for a figurative form of expression and in 2003 she met the foundation of TIKA with her well-known big-nosed characters. Today Maja Hürst tells figurative to abstract stories with her visual language TIKA, searching for the essence of expression and emotion in the overlapping of colours and forms. In March 2020 she worked for the first time with the URBAN NATION Museum.

In her woodcuts, canvases and murals she catalyzes social and political grievances and their effects on nature. She draws inspiration from life, different cultures, art history and the symbolism of the animal kingdom. Technically and formally she does not limit herself. She sprays with cans attached to extension rods, applies relief from metal adhesive tape, draws with a soldering iron in carved wood, scratches layers of paint. The only limits are the recognition of TIKA and she is not afraid to cross them, which is evident in the increasingly abstract works of the last years.

Raised in Cairo and Cologne, her family has lived in Berlin and Zurich since 1994. Since her childhood Maja Hürst has described herself as a citizen of the world. Her stays of several years in Rio de Janeiro are formative for both her artistic work and her work as a DJ. Between 2017 and 2019 she built her own studio on one of the last brownfields in Berlin-Kreuzberg. For studio stays, exhibitions, murals and festivals she has already travelled all continents except Australia. Maja Hürst’s visual universe TIKA has been shown at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, the Museumsquartier in Vienna, the Kunsthaus Zürich and the Bundeskunsthallen in Bonn, among others.

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