About

Maria Schechter is a California based artist and artist advocate, with a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.  She initiated her graduate work at New York University, working towards a Masters in Visual Art Administration,  and later graduated with a Masters in International Business and Management Studies (IBMS) from Schiller International University in Heidelberg, Germany. Her interests are woven into her paintings from Buddhist Sutras to panels of color to form a sensory relationship with nature she sews the experience into her paintings. Maria works primarily in mixed media; oils, acrylic, collage, inks, found objects, gold leaf and sewing. Schechter has had solo and group shows in California, Indiana, Seattle, Mannheim, Germany, New York, Louisiana and has been featured in The Seattle Times, WhiteHot Magazine, Colors NW Magazine, The Stranger Weekly, The Seattle Times Weekly, Mannheimer Morgan, Germany, The New York Times. You may follow her work here.

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She has received grants from the Goethe Institute New York City, Schiller International University, Cornish College of the Arts, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, and was a MacArthur Award Nominee. Maria has co-founded two significant organizations: the WhatIsArt-WhatIsSound organization, initiated as an arts collective with over 200 artists. The organization found it’s way into 13 countries over a three year period and the Klaus Gallery and Arts Collective in Brooklyn, New York. She has gained mayoral support from thirteen cities arts and cultural affairs offices including Seattle, Washington, Mostar, (former) Bosnia. Strasbourg, France, and Mannheim, Germany. In addition to these achievements, Maria has founded an arts organization that launched in January, 2019. 

Cultured Social™, is a global arts management organization representing international artists and provides expertise in art marketing, and project management. Maria initiated her Ph.D program in 2016 working alongside Deepak Chopra and Merriam Goldstein and continues to develop her vision of Culture Mapping, which includes in production series of paintings which can only be described as a world-weariness characteristic of the late Symbolists. The Symbolists favored spirituality, imagination and dreams. It is exactly these elements which led her to nearly 30 years of Buddhist practice. And it is now why her work is so closely connected to nature. Over the last two decades Maria has traveled to seventeen countries and now continues to work on her current body of work.

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"When my great grandfather was a young artist, no one was there to protect him and his interests.  His sculptures can be seen across Buda and Pest in Hungary, but Bela Ohmann didn’t have anyone to protect him as he was placed into camps during World War II.  This happened before I was born, but I grew up with his story,  and the injustice that happened to him.  It made me feel for artists, and yearn to protect them.  When I attended art college and later initiated my graduate work with New York University for art administration, I was exposed to the ways artists are treated unfairly. I chose to attend business school so that I would be better prepared to protect their interests.  I understand the world of creation and the world of commerce.  With my help, you are able to focus on your creations, your gifts to the world.

It’s my personal mission to be a catalyst for good in the world.  Art is hope, and hope needs all the support it can get.  Always. I love art and artists.  By helping them achieve their goals, I help to make the world a better place.  I enable their work to spread hope around the world.  My goals for you are the same goals that you have. By working together, we help to leverage your time so you can focus more on creation and I work on finding opportunities for you to capture hearts and minds of the art market. Together we create a beautiful world. Every artist that I’m able to work with is a blessing in my heart."