Maisy Paaswell

about me

I am a Senior at Bennington College, pursuing an interdisciplinary study of religion and visual arts. My academic journey allows me to explore both fields as distinct areas of inquiry, while also investigating their dynamic intersections. I engage with a diverse range of artistic practices, including ceramics, printmaking, sewing, and painting. My commitment to artistic growth drives me to continually experiment with new mediums, while deepening my mastery of established techniques. I thrive on the transformative power of art and its connections to spiritual and cultural narratives, aiming to create works that resonate on multiple levels.

My work focuses on combining my knowledge on and relationship to religion (specifically Judaism) with my artistic practice. I often start from a place of complete excess and try and narrow my options down from there as opposed to starting with a metaphorical blank canvas and adding onto it. I find the most success in tactile mediums. My art is not about just creating a piece of “religious art” but also about turning the experience of making art into a religious one. 

My knowledge comes from four years of attending a Catholic high school while being raised Jewish, and a fascination with Emile Durkheim’s concept of the sacred (awe-inspiring, magnificent things) and the profane (the mundane and that which stands in opposition to the sacred).