WHO IS MARIA STAFFELD?
Maria Staffeld, currently 24 years old, was born in the Dominican Republic. After high school, she filled herself with courage and decided to leap into Multidisciplinary Art. This leap paid off; she went to Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design (Denver, CO), where she graduated and started the Somewhere Nowhere concept.
“I constantly got in trouble in high school because I wouldn’t stop drawing. However, I kept myself involved by helping with activities that involved the arts. Skipping class to paint posters was pretty standard for me. At home, I’d be painting on my walls. This was my way of keeping the world quieter and slower when everything felt too fast-paced.”
Staffeld was drawing nonstop before she learned how to write, so it is natural for her to practice her art consistently. She understands that delayed gratification is essential. She doesn’t rush. She does a little work every day, even if the project takes years to culminate. The only comparison she makes is between her new work and her old work.
College was the time to seek creativity, both internally and externally. As previously mentioned, Maria Staffeld obtained her BFA at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. This is where she started developing her style into what it is today.
“I got to spend time with myself and other creatives. We shared studio spaces and often encouraged each other to keep creating. We helped each other get out there and exhibit work.”
In 2021, Maria Staffeld had her first solo show at the Dateline gallery in Denver, “Somewhere Nowhere,” where she sold most of her paintings and sculptures. There, the name Somewhere Nowhere emerged for the first time.
“Don’t be hard on yourself. Compete with yourself. Nobody else is part of the game. It’s your game.”
Staffeld started the concept of Somewhere Nowhere in 2018 through her drawings, sculptures, and paintings. She would take advantage of her free time in college to create this parallel world to hers as a sweet escape, usually depicted in fragments.
Staffeld describes her art as visual poetry. It’s metaphoric. It’s an epic that, for the longest time, has been based on her own experiences, a surreal story shared in the third person through a character. It has always been a process of understanding herself through a small, naked, faceless girl — a girl who always seemed to be searching for something on her own in an extraordinary world.
“Pusses, domestic and wild, reappear in my work alongside a young female figure, unhinged by the expectations of societal norms. These strange curvy creatures reflect individuality, transparency, and being bold as we go through a never-ending adventure. These characters exist in a place I like to call Somewhere Nowhere. A place of pastel skies and blobby structures. A breath of fresh air from all the chaos.”
Staffeld also enjoys playing with semiotics and connecting objects/things that wouldn’t usually make sense. She is a curious artist that likes to experiment. It always starts with a “what if…”, and — bam! — she’s onto something. That being said, she can be very scatterbrained sometimes. Too many thoughts all at once. A silly artist. A foolish, hyper Hooman.
“Escaping rationality while still acquiring meaning is such an exciting process.”
Whenever she pictures something in her mind, she can’t resist the urge to make it exist. There’s so much pleasure that comes from creating something from nothing; it pushes her to ask questions and make connections that she would have never considered otherwise.
Now we’re seeing these fragments come together to create Somewhere Nowhere. This new world has been coming to life since then, and thanks to the latest innovations in tokenized art, Somewhere Nowhere is not just a place in her mind; it’s a place for every Hooman that wants to belong. Somewhere Nowhere is the product of Staffeld’s abstract storytelling.
Somewhere Nowhere isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning.
