Maya Iskoz discuses her sculpture and video art for WashU in Focus. (Eran Fann | Photo Editor)

This past summer, senior and studio art major Maya Iskoz participated in the Yale Norfolk School of Art’s intensive 6-week residency program designed for up-and-coming artists. Inspired by Roland Barthes’ 1967 essay “Death of an Author,” Iskoz created “Death of a Player” during the intensive, an eight-minute video art piece exploring individual identity and its displacement onto other forms — such as avatars — to better understand the bounds of the self.    

“When you think back to playing, do you remember yourself watching your avatar play, or yourself as the avatar playing? Can avatars help us understand ourselves?” read subtitles in the video.   

Iskoz’s work exists in an intersection between critical academic theory and popular culture/mass media. Her video, “Death of a Player,” includes direct quotations from Barthes’ subversive critical theory juxtaposed with pastoral imagery, scenes from the video game IMV, and lyrics from Ye’s (formerly Kanye West) “New Body” and Lana Del Rey’s “Gods & Monsters.”            

Although she was initially interested in pursuing painting, Iskoz transitioned to sculpture and, more recently, video because she felt as though they better represented her visions and ideas.  

“I took a sculpture class, and I had a really great professor, Anika Todd, and I started thinking three dimensionally and how you can make so many versatile things,” she said. “Conceptually, three-dimensional objects ended up being a lot closer to my visions than two dimensional media, like paintings.” 

In addition to working in 3D, Iskoz enjoys experimenting with the element of time in her work and being “pushed” by the added challenges both of these facets bring.  

“I recently started focusing on video too because [of] the added dimension of time, which …  also helps to more closely bring my visions to life.” 

A still from Iskoz’s video art piece “Death of a Player.”

Iskoz cited the work of video artists Ryan Trecartin and Jon Rafman as influential for her own work. She said that Trecartin’s videos — which last between 60 to 90 minutes — thrust viewers into a world of uncanny characters interwoven with familiar elements borrowed from reality TV and cinema. 

“I really like how long it is because it really forces you to sit and engage with it, and pulls you into the world that he’s constructing,” she said. “But beyond that, … I’m not really into over-analyzing. I think the work is just really good and really funny, and I just love the experience I have when I interact with it.”  

In a similar vein, Iskoz refuted the belief that art needs to be looked at with the goal of total understanding, emphasizing the experience of being exposed to the work over comprehension of it.   

“I think over-interpretation just sucks the life out of art sometimes.” 

Personally, she is interested in the music of rap phenomenon Travis Scott and has incorporated it into some of her work — she sees his songs as indicative of culturally ingrained hedonism and nihilism.  

“It has a je ne sais quoi,” Iskoz said. “I think it really helps me understand my work and figure out what I want to prioritize. I think his music says a lot about society, but in a really funny, pop cultural way, which is why I really like it.” 

Although she said she initially regretted her decision to come to WashU to pursue art and considered switching to a math major, Iskoz felt like her priorities shifted after studying abroad in Florence the summer between her sophomore and junior year. 

She added that she was very grateful to have had the opportunity to study closely with art faculty in both Florence and at WashU, and most recently at the Yale Norfolk school over the summer.      

“I think junior year, something kind of clicked,” she said. “During study abroad, I had a — not to be cliché — but a realization about what I valued in my life and what I wanted to do.” 

Junior fall was the start of her current wave of work, which Iskoz says feels more salient and meaningful to her than her previous art. 

Some of these pieces include “Luke 21:31”— a vape that displays a compilation of various TikTok lives overlayed with direct quotes from Jesus’ description of the Rapture from Luke — and “UnHinged Horse/Ketamine Therapy” — a life size sculpture of a Bojack-Horseman-esque horse suspended from the ceiling. The sculpture also has organs protruding from it inscribed with pervasive online dating phrases such as ‘Pics?’ and ‘Showering without me?’ 

Horse imagery is a frequent motif in Iskoz’s body of work, and she noted that the sculpting process of “UnHinged Horse,” pictured above, took many weeks due to its lifelike size. (Photo courtesy of Maya Iskoz)

“Whereas for previous work, I couldn’t explain necessarily why I wanted to make something — which I don’t think makes it bad, but I think [the new art] just felt better to make, because I was like, ‘This is why I’m doing this,’” she said.

Iskoz views art, or the institution of “Art,” as she referred to it, as becoming increasingly inaccessible. She added that pieces should be located in inviting spaces, not just the stereotypical “white cube galleries.”  

“I think that [art] should be complicated and interesting and hard to understand,” Iskoz explained. “I think that it should be exciting [and] I don’t think it should be written off as bad work because it’s confusing.”  

With the shared goal of making student-created art as accessible as possible, Iskoz and her close friend Max Schreiber decided to host an art gallery in his home the weekend of Nov. 7 and 8 with theirs and others’ work. Iskoz hopes that those who have the opportunity to experience art do not dismiss what is initially incomprehensible to them.         

“I think the worst thing is, if someone interacts with an artwork and they see it and then immediately they’re like, ‘This makes no sense.’” 

With her own art, Iskoz hopes that it leaves a lingering impression with viewers.   

“I would like my work to stick with people for a little bit after they see it, and if they keep thinking about it and turning it around in their mind, hopefully they can find something interesting or helpful or cool about it,” Iskoz said.