Maria Britton: Second Sleep

Second Sleep highlights Britton’s textile-based works called Draperies, in which patterned bedsheets become expertly layered, pleated, and playful abstract paintings. Mounted on the wall in curtain-like forms, her Draperies shape liminal portals of reflection, whether obscuring the past or inviting to imagine what lies beyond. The large-scale Draperies, all made in 2024, feature layers of ruffled and pleated sheets sewn and painted in an improvisational manner. The Draperies combine the art historical term drapery—depictions of folded fabrics—with Maria’s interest in everything curtains.

Maria Britton (born 1982, Florence, SC) lives and works in Carrboro, NC. She has participated in artist residencies through Lighthouse Works, Hambidge Center, Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, Petrified Forest National Park, and Vermont Studio Center. Her recent group exhibitions include the Weatherspoon Art Museum, North Carolina Museum of Art, Lump Gallery, and Atlanta Contemporary. Her work will be featured in New American Paintings No. 178. Maria earned her BFA from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, and her MFA from UNC Chapel Hill. From 2015–2020, she co-directed an experimental art gallery called LOG. Maria has worked around 50 jobs as a housecleaner, educator, stain and glaze dental technician, direct support professional, photo re-toucher, hospital artist-in-residence working directly with oncology patients, and rideshare driver.

Britton’s most recent newspaper pulp sculptures, abstract paintings, and sewn wall-based works called Draperies made from patterned bed sheets were featured in her past exhibition, Movements. Through her use of everyday materials, including bed sheets and newspapers, Maria transforms objects typically on their way out the door into an opportunity to elevate and extend experiences of liminality. Movements was on view at Anchorlight from May 3, 2025 – June 28, 2025.

This exhibition is funded in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts and funded in part by a generous award from the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of The Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina.

Reception: April 10 from 6:30 - 8:00pm

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