About The Artist
Maria Masha is a self-taught visual artists based in Pretoria, South Africa. She works mainly in the medium of paint and started developing her visual art skills in 2014.
The main purpose of the paintings she produces is to showcase the beauty of Sacred Geometry infused with various subjects matters and celebrating the African way of life. The Flower of Life and the Harmonics of Music patterns have been prevalent in the artworks she has produced thus far.In 2018 she opened a visual arts company, WhoArt (Pty) Ltd, which her art is sold under and provides visual arts products and services to various clients.
In March 2021 she participated in her first group exhibition at the Gauteng Pop-Up Gallery. During that year she became a part of the Arts Accelerator Incubation Program organised by the South African Creative Industries Incubator which incubates creative entrepreneurs to run their businesses successfully. The first year of the incubation culminated in an exhibition at Julie Miller African Contemporary Gallery in March 2022. She completed her second year of incubation in April 2023.
Her work has been acquired by the National Museum in Bloemfontein in order to aid in the education of the African way of life using art.
Our Story
Community work has been a strong focus throughout her artistic journey. The community of Mamelodi East in Pretoria has allowed her to use my creative skills to organise programs and art projects that are uplifting and showcase opportunities in visual arts. In 2019 she started a program called WhoArt Creative Kids whose purpose was to take the participating children through the process of creating art works, exhibiting them and making a sale.
The children participated in the 2019 Children’s Tile Art Project held by the Pretoria Art Museum. In 2021 she was a part of the #Proud of my Town project by Ranyaka where she and three other artists and community members created mural in a local park.
Her body of work has a distinctive look that combines sacred geometry patterns with forms and figures of humans in order to depict and capture the beauty of a certain moment in time. The story behind the artworks is usually derived from celebratory events that the artist has attended, personal moments in her journey as an artist and images captured as she goes by her everyday life.
This is all with the aim of telling an African story from an authentic point of view and inviting those who get to interact with the art to interpret it in their own way and reflect on the beauty of their identity.
