• Maria turns paint into physical mass in her works
• Through layering and scraping, she shapes tactile, sculptural surfaces
• Her material choice emerges from long observation and intuition

Maria Chang developed an early sensitivity to material, structure and surface that continues to inform her mixed media and decorative art practice today. Working at the threshold between painting and object, she approaches the canvas as a site of accumulation rather than depiction. "My process begins long before any physical act, as materials are held, observed and carried around the studio for months," Maria says. Only then does the hand's role begin, to build layers through a slow, physical process. Plaster, sand and industrial compounds act as active agents, shaping weight and resistance. The result is a dense matter, where time, touch and material converge into a deeply physical form of painting.