ABOUT

Maria Teicher (b. 1983, New Jersey) is a fine art botanical, portrait, and figurative artist. Her work weaves a tapestry of matrescence, modern womanhood, and personal politics through painted figuration and florals.

Maria holds her BFA (2007) from Rowan University and MFA (2013) from the New York Academy of Art. She exhibits regularly in Philadelphia, New York, and California. She was an Assistant Professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art from 2016 to 2024 - when they closed their degreed programs. She is now an Adjunct Professor at her undergraduate alma mater, Rowan University.

Maria finished her third solo show with Arch Enemy Arts Gallery in 2023 and followed that up with a duo show in Oslo Norway – shortly after the birth of her second child. In 2025 she is exhibiting work in Philadelphia, Texas, Colorado, and New York.

When Maria is not creating or teaching, she is running her photography business Iris and Echo, reading, researching niche topics in art history, and spending time with her husband and two young sons. She resides and works in West Chester, PA.

Artist Statement

Weaving a tapestry of matrescence, modern womanhood, and personal politics through painted figuration and florals.

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I became a mother in the Spring of 2017. As saturated florals began to bloom, showing how small seeds can transform entire landscapes, I sat indoors contemplating the dark reality of my postpartum existence. That first month – and these subsequent years – changed the entire course of my artistic practice.

While navigating my way through a rebirth of self, postpartum mental health, and the maternal care in my country, I developed a body of work that sang to the rhythms of my small backyard flora. The planting, growth, maturity, withering, wintering, and annual repeating cycle they endured mirrored my internal world.

The heart of my studio practice is this deeply lived experience – my own and those I am closest to. I speak through symbols, floriography, and carefully constructed liminal negative spaces that beg to be projected into.

My subjects are unapologetically representational. I begin each piece with carefully planned still life and portrait-centered photography. Each work matures using traditional techniques of the old masters and Dutch still-life painters. These aesthetic choices speak not only to the cadence of my creative hand but purposefully elevate intimate, ever-evolving, overlooked stories of domestic womanhood and the politics surrounding that existence.

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