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Maya Pen

New Orleans, Louisiana

Que Brillaba Sobre El Muro is a mixed-media artwork depicting a sculptural large human face with braids and an open mouth at the top, from which a painting extends with small human figures and a red river flowing toward miniature houses on a dark surface.

Que Brillaba Sobre El Muro

2024

We've Been Among You is an art installation featuring a figure at the center draped in black with a textured mask, surrounded by an arch of branches and foliage, set against a purple wall with stones and candles on the floor. Flanked on each side are robes pinned to the wall with masks and handwritten words.

We've Been Among You

2023

We’ve Been Wearing Your Skin We Have Felt How It Traps You shows two people in black robes and white, wrinkly textured face masks with no eyes stand side by side in a field of pinkish foliage with green sky and trees in the background.

We’ve Been Wearing Your Skin We Have Felt How It Traps You

2023

On the Way Back shows a person in a pale, off-shoulder gown and head covering, a drooping green face with prosthetic wounds and fingers emerging from their face, chest, and shoulder, sits under dramatic yellow-green lighting with one breast exposed.

On the Way Back

2022

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About Maya Pen

Maya Pen sits and smiles brightly with her eyes closed, and a hand on her chin. She is a latina woman with long dark braided hair, medium-light skin tone, and wears giant hoop earrings, orange pants and chunky snakeskin boots.

Maya Pen is a community-taught interdisciplinary artist based in New Orleans. Her work gives voice to personal and collective histories through mythology and magical realism across SPFX, costume, scenic arts, photography, film, writing, and sound.

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Center Residency, 2025

Website / Social Links

“ My creative process revolves around using social practice and collaborative oral storytelling to create new visual mythologies that combat colonial storytelling. Recently, I've been exploring the cross-cultural mythologies surrounding braids, and experimenting with textiles and weaving.”