Maria Chavez

Maria Chavez is an improviser, curator and sound artist born 1980 in Lima, Peru. Her family moved to Texas when she was two years old. The following year doctors found and released liquid in her ears alleviating what had been a serious impediment to her speech and hearing. By age 16 she began working with sound and turntables. Her sound installations, visual objects and live turntable performances focus on the values of the accident and its unique, complicated possibilities with sound emitting machinery like the turntable. Influenced by improvisation in contemporary art, her work extends outside of the sound world to straddle varied disciplines of interest. The sound installations and live turntable performances of Maria Chavez focus on the paradox of time and the present moment, with many influences stemming from improvisation in contemporary art.