Join us for an artist talk with Maria Britton! The conversation will take place in our galleries, followed by a Q&A.

About the Artist

Maria Britton (born 1982, Florence, SC) lives and works in Carrboro, North Carolina. She has participated in artist residencies through Lighthouse Works, Hambidge Center, Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, Petrified Forest National Park and Vermont Studio Center. Her recent group exhibitions include the Weatherspoon Art Museum, North Carolina Museum of Art, Lump Gallery and Atlanta Contemporary. Her work will be featured in New American Paintings No. 178. Maria earned her bachelor's of fine arts from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and her master's of fine arts from UNC Chapel Hill. From 2015–20, she co-directed an experimental art gallery called LOG. Britton has worked around 50 jobs as a housecleaner, educator, stain and glaze dental technician, direct support professional, photo re-toucher, hospital artist-in-residence working directly with oncology patients, and rideshare driver. 

Second Sleep features Britton’s sewn wall-based works called Draperies made from patterned bed sheets. Through her use of everyday materials including bed sheets, she transforms objects typically on their way out the door into an opportunity to elevate and extend experiences of liminality. 

The large-scale Draperies, all made in 2024, feature layers of ruffled and pleated sheets sewn and painted in an improvisational manner. The Draperies combine the art historical term drapery, depictions of folded fabrics, with Britton’s interest in everything curtains. The floral forms of the paper sculptures mimic her experience of living with hypermobility (overly flexible joints) and hard-to-define aspects of having a connective tissue disorder. Using a custom mix of pulped-up newspapers, she slowly builds up the regurgitated newsfeed into floral forms, allowing each layer to dry completely before smoothing on another. The smaller paintings on bed sheets look into motifs repeated throughout her twenty years of painting on sheets, including gesture, positive and negative space, cutouts, fabric manipulation and an inverted arch form suggestive of an eye or breast.