artist statement

I approach art as a gatherer. I collect layers and let them mature over time because meaning rarely resides in one story alone. Like the darkroom process, the development of understanding needs time, and uncertainty is a part of the process rather than something to resolve. For years I return to the same ideas before they materialize.

Photography is my chosen means of tracing the long lines of a lived life. My work is grounded in realism through steady compositions, while also embracing the playfulness of surreal expressions. My artistic practice is rooted in the belief that things can be more than one at once.

A photograph of a landscape is a document of a place, a record of weather, a political image of a changing climate, and at the same time an emotional backdrop for a battered family history. Every image carries multiple readings, revealing not only what is depicted, but also the choices made behind the camera.

The final ingredient of any artwork is the viewer. It is through the encounter with their memories, experiences and cultural references that the work continues to unfold and find new meanings.

bio

Maya Økland (b. 1980, Bergen, Norway) is a Norwegian/Brazilian/Icelandic/Swedish artist and curator with an MFA in photography from the Bergen National College of Arts in 2005. Her artworks are in the collections of Vestland Fylkeskommune (2026), KORO - Public Art Norway (2024), KODE Bergen Art Museum, Norway (2020) and Halland Art Museum, Sweden (2018). Økland has exhibited at various art institutions and galleries such as Oplandia senter for samtidskunst; Lillehammer; Trondhjems Kunstforening; Larvik Kunstforening; Tenthaus, Oslo; Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo; Varbergs Konsthall, Sweden; Fotogalleriet, Oslo; Gallery SíM, Iceland; Telemark Kunstsenter, Norway; Kreuzberg Pavilion, Berlin; Galleria Huuto, Finland; Kjubh Kunstverein, Cologne; Kulturhuset Sermermiut, Greenland; Hasselblad Center, Sweden. Her photobook, 'Stranger in Motherland,' was published by Teknisk Industri in 2017 and she is a member of the artist photographer collective 'A Female Gaze' since 2022. In 2025 her photobook Worried Landscapes was published by Minutiøs Forlag.

As a curator, Maya Økland co-founded and co-curated the artist-run gallery KNIPSU in Bergen from 2010 to 2015. She worked at Kunsthall Stavanger as curatorial assistant to Hanne Mugaas (2015), Interim Director and Curator (2016), and Coordinator (2017). In 2021, Økland was art advisor for the public sculpture 'Benkene til Kim' by artist Lina Viste Grønli, dedicated to the legendary gay rights activist Kim Friele (1935-2021). She co-curated the exhibition Mother's Nature at Sector 1 Gallery in Bucharest, Romania (2023). In 2025 she was Interim Director of Bergen Center for Electronic Art (BEK) from March-December, working with the BEK symposium The Only Lasting Truth is Change. Økland is also an image editor and writer, member of the editorial staff of the feminist magazine Fett (2013-23). In 2025 she founded Minutiøs forlag.

Maya Økland lives and works in Oslo.