Maria Britton (born 1982, Florence, SC) lives and works in Carrboro, NC. She has participated in artist residencies through Lighthouse Works, Hambidge Center, Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, Petrified Forest National Park, and Vermont Studio Center. Her recent group exhibitions include the Weatherspoon Art Museum, North Carolina Museum of Art, Lump Gallery, and Atlanta Contemporary. Her work will be featured in New American Paintings No. 178. Maria earned her BFA from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, and her MFA from UNC Chapel Hill. From 2015–2020, she co-directed an experimental art gallery called LOG. Maria has worked around 50 jobs as a housecleaner, educator, stain and glaze dental technician, direct support professional, photo re-toucher, hospital artist-in-residence working directly with oncology patients, and rideshare driver.
Maria Britton transforms discarded bedsheets into artworks that dance between painting and sculpture. Second Sleep highlights these textile-based works called “Draperies” in which patterned bedsheets become expertly layered, pleated, and playful abstract paintings. Mounted on the wall in curtain-like forms, her “Draperies” shape portals of reflection, whether obscuring the past or inviting to imagine what lies beyond.
The term “second sleep” references a pattern of segmented sleep common prior to the Industrial Revolution. Some used this middle of the night wakefulness as a time for creativity and thought, others used it for household chores and maintenance. With the invention of electricity and working pressures from capitalism, modern societies lost touch with this natural rhythm of rest.
Intertwining domestic materials with joyful abstraction, Britton invites a celebration of reinvention and free-thinking. Second Sleep points to over a decade of ambitious artistic development, showcasing a body of work where new methods and designs are prioritized over tradition.
Maria Britton: Second Sleep is funded in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts and funded in part by a generous award from the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of The Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina.
