Maria Maea (b. 1988, Long Beach, CA) utilizes assemblage and process-based figurative sculptures and installations to illuminate the relationship between land and the body, specifically focused on narratives around immigrant families and their labor in Los Angeles. Her research focuses on equitable futures and climate justice through food and water accessibility in marginalized communities. Through her use of materials such as concrete, rebar, found objects, fruiting plants, seeds, and woven palm fronds foraged across Los Angeles, Maea creates future ancestor sculptures that act as intimate portraits of family and community as well as abstract cartography of the LA urban landscape. Many of her works structurally contain seed pods that, over time, will crumble to dust, leaving only the viable seed behind. Through the act of propagation and stewardship, the artworks become multi-generational. These works seek to expand and complicate our relationship to issues around justice, stewardship, contamination, and preservation. Maea’s is currently exhibiting at Commonwealth and Council, LBCC Art Gallery, and Plataforma Guadalajara, Mexico.  Most recently awarded: Latinx Artist Fellowship (National Award, 2024-2025) and California Community Fund Fellowship (Los Angeles, 2024-2025). Exhibited at:  the air we share, Craft Contemporary (LA, 2025),  Life on Earth: Art & Ecofeminism, West Den Haag/ the Brick (Netherlands  2025, LA 2024), At the Edge of the Sun, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery (LA, 2024), Made In LA: Acts of Living, Hammer Museum - biennial exhibition(LA, 2023), Stargazer, Public Sculpture at LASHP and LA Nomadic Division (LA, 2023) Acquisitions: All In Time, Hammer Museum - 2024 Mohn Collections.