Maya Erdelyi-Perez

From ice sculpting at the Ice Hotel in the Arctic to staging renegade fashion shows in the Paris subway system, the life of New York born artist Maya Erdelyi-Perez is not unlike one of her own surreal animated films.  On the eve of shooting a new music video, Maya chats with me about illegal subway spectacles, collaborating with band No Surrender and Tunde Adebimpe from TV on the Radio and her upcoming exhibit this Saturday night.

Chicktellectual.com:  How did you get started?

Maya Erdelyi-Perez: Since I was a little kid I was drawing on things.  I think the first time I got spanked was because I was drawing on the walls [laughs].  I went to Laguardia High School and studied art there and started doing fashion on the side.  I also studied fine art at Cooper Union and film at Hunter College.

C.com:  What did you do after school?

MEP:  As soon as I graduated college I ventured forth on a year of adventures beginning with an apprenticeship at the Ice Hotel in the Arctic studying ice sculpture. After that I moved around Europe and then to Paris for 9 months where I started a fashion company with painter Alex Kellum.

C.com:  What kind of fashion company?

MEP:  We called it Mystic Funk Circus. Our grand opus was a fashion spectacle in the subway system of Paris.  It was basically a renegade, illegal show and you had to be invited and know what time to get there.  We printed the invite on what looked like a Parisian metro card.  It was a huge production — we had over 60 people involved — from dancers, circus performers to make-up artists and even a masseuse — and they were all volunteers.  But then we also had random people just joining us. There was this Australian photographer across the way and he left his train to see what was going on, and we got some other odd stragglers and fashion world insiders.

Art by Maya Erdelyi-Perez
Click Images for Slideshow

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OUROBOUROS prequel
OUROBOUROS part two: The Doppelganger
Animation by Maya Erdelyi-Perez

C.com:  Wow. So how did this actually work?

MEP: Basically it’s a short line, the 7BIS line, which just loops with only 7 stops.  We had 2 models on each stop. So when we started, we didn’t have any models, but then we picked them up along the way as the train made its loop and the runway was the inside of the train.  We changed the lighting, we had a boom box, there was champagne…Good times...

C.com: And wait, no one tried to shut you guys down? I’m trying to picture this going down in NY...  

MEP:  As long as they paid their fare, no one was doing anything wrong.  People were just hanging out — it was a currated commuting experience.

C.com: How did you then find your way to animation?

MEP:  When I was getting my Masters in Art Education at Harvard I felt the need to take some art classes — I didn’t just want to talk about and analyze art — I needed to be creating as well.  I went to a student festival of animation and was really impressed and thought, wait, I should be doing this.  So I took a class and it just blew me away — there was this freshness and freedom about the medium that seduced me.  I would spend hours animating. Bringing something to life was magical.  I felt the raw wonder that a child feels looking at a rainbow — or just watching paint swirl in water — and got hooked. And that’s what I’ve been doing since.

C.com: What kind of stuff are you working on right now?

MEP:  I’m doing music videos now.  Right now I’m working on an exciting new piece for this band called No Surrender, which features Tunde Adebimpe from TV On The Radio. The song is called "Silver Hall" and the video's coming out in the winter of 2010.

C.com:  What do you think is next for you?

MEP:  Besides getting a peacock for my 30th birthday, I’m going to Cal Arts to get an MFA in experimental animation in September.

C.com: What’s that exactly?

MEP:  Experimental animation uses more avante-garde  techniques to create animation.  For instance: paint on glass, using shadow puppets, stop-motion, pixilation, claymation, scratching on film, or using sand or charcoal to animate.  It’s using more alternative techniques to creating animation – often what you would see in a music video or even in a lot of films – such as The Devil and Daniel Johnston or even Run Lola Run, or at museums and art galleries – William Kentridge or Martha Colburn, for example. It’s typically not like cartoony animation, and takes animation to another level you ordinarily wouldn’t experience.

For details on Maya's upcoming exhibition of fashion, film, and fine art on Saturday, July 25 from 7-10 pm, check out Maya's blog, or email her at maya...@gmail.com.

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