Maija Peeples-Bright

Maija Peeples-Bright (b. 1942 in Riga, Latvia, lives and works in Rocklin, CA) is one of the few women artists associated with Northern California’s Funk and Nut art movements of the late 1960s and ‘70s. In 1965 she graduated with a masters degree in art from UC Davis and had her first solo exhibition at the renowned Candy Store Gallery in nearby Folsom, CA, where she exhibited annually until 1991. Her wildly inventive practice comprises compositions bustling with animals of all kinds, forming surreal, imaginative landscapes in audacious impasto. Adding a growing number of animals—lovingly referred to by the artist as ‘beasties’—to her visual lexicon with each passing year, they represent alternate realities, infusing gaiety and a sense of the absurd into impossible scenarios. Highly distinctive, her animal groupings relish in the extreme, often taking up every inch of the canvas; multiplying her subjects into dizzying arrangements, they comprise entire worlds.

Recent solo exhibitions include those held at Venus Over Manhattan, New York (2024), Parker Gallery, Los Angeles (2020 and 2023), and Nicelle Beauchene, New York (2019). Recent group exhibitions include Seriously? Comedy and Satire in Canadian Art 1970s-Now, Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver, Canada (2025), Nuts and Who’s: A Candy Store Sampler, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA (2023), Clay Pop Los Angeles, Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2023), Funk You Too!: Humor and Irreverence in Modern and Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY (2023), The Candy Store: Funk, Art, and Other Art With A Kick, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA (2022), Strange, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA (2019), and Landscape Without Boundaries: Selections from the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, curated by Dan Nadel, Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis, CA (2019). Her work is included in several permanent collections, including the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis, CA; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN; the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinatti, OH; and the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA

News

Seriously?: Comedy and Satire in Canadian Art 1970s-Now
Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver, BC
January 25–May 18, 2025


Exhibitions

Bowls, Boxes, Plates & Vessels

Oct 9 – Nov 23, 2024

Frieze London

Oct 11 – Oct 15, 2023

Wishing Well

Jun 25 – Aug 5, 2023

Maija Peeples-Bright
Mermaid Maija & the Island Paintings

Apr 23 – Jun 10, 2023

Nothing is to be Done for William T. Wiley

Jun 12 – Aug 6, 2022

Independent

Sep 9 – Sep 12, 2021

Maija Peeples-Bright
beautiFOAL

Sep 13 – Oct 31, 2020

The Candy Store

Jun 10 – Aug 11, 2018

NADA Miami

Dec 7 – Dec 10, 2017

Nut Art

May 28 – Aug 5, 2017

Store

Maija Peeples-Bright: beautiFOAL

Perfect bound, 380 pages
9 1/4 x 10 1/2 inches (23.49 x 26.67 cm)
Essays by Michael Duncan, Cat Kron
Design by Tully
Edition of 500
Parker Gallery
September 2020

$65


Press

October 1, 2024
Artforum
Animal Farm: Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer on the art of Maija Peeples-Bright
July 3, 2024
Hyperallergic
Seven Art Shows to See in NYC Right Now
September 11, 2023
KQED
8 Over 80: The Contagious Joy of Maija Peeples-Bright’s Animal-Filled World
September 10, 2021
The New York Times
Still Independent, and Still Exceptional
November 1, 2020
Carla
Maija Peeples-Bright's Anti-Hierarchical Utopias and the Art of World-Building
October 23, 2020
Art & Object
5 Not-to-Be-Missed Los Angeles Solo Shows
October 11, 2020
Contemporary Art Daily
Maija Peeples-Bright at Parker Gallery
September 24, 2020
KCRW Greater LA
Two New Art Shows to Check Out Amid the Pandemic
September 15, 2020
KCRW Art Insider
Maija Peeples-Bright at Parker Gallery
September 8, 2020
Hyperallergic
Your Concise Los Angeles Art Guide for September 2020
December 20, 2017
Contemporary Art Daily
Parker Gallery at NADA Miami
December 7, 2017
ARTnews
34 Artworks I Would Like to Acquire from NADA Miami
August 6, 2017
Contemporary Art Daily
“Nut Art” at Parker Gallery
July 14, 2017
Hyperallergic
Revisiting the Witty Work of 1970s Bay Area Nut Artists
June 15, 2017
Contemporary Art Review LA
Nut Art at Parker Gallery
October 1, 2012
Style Magazine
maija peeples-bright: Fantastically Funky
July 6, 2012
The Sacramento Bee
Funky figures inhabit ‘World of Woof.’
August 1, 1980
Sacramento Magazine
Enough to Make You Smile
August 1, 1975
Lifestyle Magazine
Maija Woof Peeples: creations from dreams
July 27, 1968
The San Francisco Chronicle
A Beastly Victorian