2026 MFA THESIS EXHIBITION
madeline maser

JANUARY 16 - FEBRUARY 28, 2026

I use automatic drawing as a way to study consciousness from the inside. Each work is made in a meditative, semi-dissociated state that allows my attention to loosen from habitual thoughts, fear-based patterns, and the entrapments of language. The pieces become physical records of inner states, closer to unintentional manifestations than designed end products.

I attempt to let the imagery reveal itself as unforced as possible, trying to not hold on too tightly to ideas that form while I draw, sculpt, edit, etc. By working without a plan or any predetermined schemes, I allow pure forms of awareness to come through. The resulting works feel less like representations and more like traces of my subconscious thoughts with archetypical tropes bleeding through.

As the work accumulates, the individual pieces begin to interact with one another. Relationships form across scale, repetition, and proximity, and a larger narrative naturally starts to unfold. The work’s chaotic ambiguity and nonlinearity allows it to be understood through the viewer’s own mental prism.

I approach my practice as a paraphysical experiment in which my subjective experience is treated as meaningful information worthy of study. I track synchronicities and perceptual shifts that seem to align with the depth of my practice, using them to explore the relationship between inner awareness and external reality. The deeper I go into my practice, the more strangeness I experience in my waking life. This process has led me to believe that consciousness is active rather than passive, and a misunderstood force of nature that participates in shaping our experience.

Drawing is my foundation, but unfamiliar processes create space for deeper parts of the subconscious to surface without immediate interpretation. I draw using random objects dipped in black ink, interrupting the muscle memory I have acquired from a lifetime of drawing. I also utilize sculpture, video and installation, purposely choosing media I am less fluent in so that my control remains limited. For video props and sculptural elements, I allow the materials to find me; I go into thrift shops without a goal and choose whatever speaks to me, then implement it how I see fit later in the studio. My work continues to expand in scale, physicality, and context, creating an environment for viewers to engage with introspectively rather than intellectually.

Besides being a record of my own unsurfaced psyche, my practice functions as a psychological form of activism. In a culture malformed by fear of the unknown and increasingly flattened modes of perception, I am interested in protecting and reactivating the human capacity for inner and outer awareness, ontological plasticity, and psychic activity. My hope is for the viewer to question the role of the Self and to recognize consciousness as the seed of reality.

Madeline Maser received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009 and will be graduating with her Masters of Fine Arts from Maharishi International University 2026. Madeline has worked in many creative fields, including as a freelance illustrator and designer, art consultant, artist assistant, teaching artist at institutions around the country, and as the art director for creative events and publications. She has also been active in the comedy and performance art scenes in Chicago and NYC. While drawing remains at the heart of her practice, Madeline also works in video, sculpture, and installation. Madeline is currently based in Des Moines, Iowa, where she is working as a teaching artist at Hoyt Sherman Place and the Des Moines Art Center. During this recent return to her home state, her work has been exhibited at the Polk County Heritage Museum and at MASS Gallery in Mainframe Studios. She plans to return to NYC upon completing her MFA degree at MIU.