With their symmetrical compositions, intricate patterns, and lush colors, Maya Hayuk’s paintings and massively scaled murals recall views of outer space, traditional Ukrainian crafts, airbrushed manicures, and mandalas. Hayuk weaves visual information from her immediate surroundings into her elaborate abstractions, creating an engaging mix of referents from popular culture and advanced painting practices while connecting to the ongoing pursuit of psychedelic experience in visual form. For her first one-person museum exhibition in the United States, she will make a new site-specific mural on the Lobby Wall. Hammer Projects: Maya Hayuk is organized by Hammer assistant curator Corrina Peipon.

Maya Hayuk was born in Baltimore in 1969. She earned a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 1991 and has studied at the University of Odessa, Odessa, Ukraine, and at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine. Hayuk’s work has been the subject of one-person exhibitions and commissions at venues including Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, the Netherlands (2012); Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, New York (2011); the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro (2011); MU, Eindhoven, the Netherlands (2010); Centro Cultural Matucana 100, Santiago, Chile (2009); the Democratic National Convention, Denver (2008); and Monster Island, Brooklyn (2005–11). Her work has been included in group exhibitions such as Streetopia, Luggage Store, San Francisco (2012); Black Light & Outer Space, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn (2011); Rojo Nova, Museum of Image and Sound, São Paulo, Brazil (2010); Contemporary Art 2010, Ukrainian Institute of America, New York (2010); L'art modeste sous les bombes, Musée International des Arts Modestes, Sète, France (2007); and The Zine Unbound: Kults, Werewolves, and Sarcastic Hippies, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2005). Hayuk has curated numerous exhibitions and is a member of the Barnstormers collective. She lives in Brooklyn.

Hammer Projects is a series of exhibitions focusing primarily on the work of emerging artists. Hammer Projects is made possible by a major gift from The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation. Generous support is provided by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy. Additional support is provided by Good Works Foundation and Laura Donnelley; the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; the Decade Fund; and the David Teiger Curatorial Travel Fund.

The Hammer Museum, a public arts unit of the University of California, Los Angeles, is dedicated to exploring the diversity of artistic expression through the ages. Its collections, exhibitions, and programs span the classic to the cutting-edge in art, architecture, and design, recognizing that artists play a crucial role in all aspects of culture and society.

The museum houses the Armand Hammer Collection of Old Master, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist paintings and the Armand Hammer Daumier and Contemporaries Collection. The Hammer’s newest collection, the Hammer Contemporary Collection, is highlighted by works on paper, particularly drawings and photographs from Southern California. The museum also houses the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, comprising more than 45,000 prints, drawings, photographs, and artists’ books from the Renaissance to the present; and oversees the management of the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden on the UCLA campus.

The Hammer presents major single-artist and thematic exhibitions of historical and contemporary art. It also presents approximately ten Hammer Projects exhibitions each year, providing international and local artists with a laboratory-like environment to create new work or to present existing work in a new context.

As a cultural center, the Hammer offers a diverse range of free public programs throughout the year, including lectures, readings, symposia, film screenings, and music performances. The Hammer’s Billy Wilder Theater houses these widely acclaimed public programs and is the new home of the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s renowned cinematheque.