MAÏA RÉGIS

By Magnus Edensvard

Maïa Régis (b. 1995, Paris, France) graduated from the Royal College of Art, London, in the fall of 2019 with a master’s degree in painting. Yet even before that time, she had been working nomadically, doing various residencies and setting up temporary studios in places like Paris, London, and the island of Pantelleria, though she always retained Palermo as her main outpost.Working across different mediums comes naturally to Régis. When I caught up with her at her studio, she had just returned from London where she had presented a hand-painted design for a limited-edition sneaker commissioned by Golden Goose. The project had been part of a Women In Art event held at the Royal Academy the evening before, where all commissions contributed towards raising funds for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Next up for Maïa is her first solo show in her adopted hometown of Palermo, at the eponymous Francesco Pantaleone Gallery, located just a few blocks away from her studio.

MAGNUS EDENSVARD: What are you working on at the moment, Maïa? Looks like a lot of portraits there in the background?

MAÏA REGIS: I’m going over all these series on paper that I did, mostly portraits I’ve painted over the years. They’re people I’ve met or people I’ve seen taken by different photographers who inspire me. I guess I paint them when I find their faces have something particular or “paintable,” with a lot of expression and character. It could be a celebrity, but it could also be someone super random on the street that I don’t know. If they have a face that I feel like painting, I just paint it.

ME: Are you currently selecting some of these works for your next show?

MR: Yes, it’s going to be a work-on-paper show including mostly painted portraits. Some of them will be pinned, but I’m also going to include some works that I’ve personally framed. They’re frames that I bought at Palermo flea markets, traditional Baroque golden or black Sicilian antiques. Sometimes they act as an extension to the character’s identity that I’ve portrayed, and the frames become part of the work. I love the contrast between more abstract works and the frames makes them a lot more present, almost formal.

ME: Remind me, what’s the show title? And what other themes are you researching for this as you prepare?

MR: The show title is Mosche e Cristi—meaning Flies and Christs in Italian—and to me, this springs from the poetics of the South, Sicily in particular, where the holy goes along with more somber aspects of life. It’s the popular devotion that I find particularly moving, especially in the very poor neighborhoods of Palermo where I live and have my studio, in Ballarò and Albergheria. On one side, there’s crime and poverty, and on the other side, there’s a theatrical aspect of life in these streets. Families and neighborhoods often organize religious processions with the local church, during which people carry the load of a saint on their shoulders to repent, while bands follow them playing drums and trumpets.

ME: Your work references this very personal and specific milieu—from the street markets, the churches, and the Palermo architecture, to the frequent processions through the streets. Can you tell me about your history with the city, and how that’s being explored in this new body of work?

MR: I’ve been working here for a long time now. At the moment, my studio is in this house that had been abandoned for over 40 years—all decaying, but it’s a beautiful palazzo with very high ceilings. My previous studio was in Vucciria, a well-known market in the center of the city. You could hear people yelling and the smells of street food would come in through the windows while I was working; you were completely immersed. This environment is very naturally an inspiration to me.