Centrum is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by visual artist Erica Mao, who will be showing ceramic works and paintings that are in-process. Mao is known for her lush, vibrant palette and densely layered compositions. Across painting and sculpture, Mao’s work speaks to enduring questions of time, space, and humanity.  

Mao evokes a sense of the sublime, situating figures within vast, often turbulent landscapes that gesture toward themes of mortality, transcendence, and the overwhelming force of nature. Themes of intimacy, camaraderie, and the need for shelter—both physical and emotional emerge.  

Mao’s paintings share a lineage with artists such as German Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) and Swedish painter Ferdinand Hodler (1953-1918). Like Friedrich, Mao evokes a sense of the sublime, situating figures within vast, often turbulent landscapes that gesture toward themes of mortality, transcendence, and the overwhelming force of nature. From Hodler, her work echoes an interest in rhythm, repetition, and the symbolic potential of form, where compositional structure carries emotional and psychological weight.  

Erica Mao, born in 1994, Columbia, MD, earned a BFA from Parsons School of Design and an MFA From Columbia University. Working across painting and sculpture, Mao is best known for her layered imagery that stitches together disparate spaces into alternate realities. Depictions of wild, imaginative landscapes explore the feelings of fear, tension, and suspense by following the path of her characters as they weave their way in and out of the narrative. In 2026, Mao presented solo exhibition Wading Through Time at Chozick Family Art Gallery, New York, NY. In 2023, Mao had a solo exhibition, Reach Through the Veil, at Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY, as well as a two-person exhibition with Robert Zehnder, Buried and Deep, in 2022. Recent group exhibitions include Jack Barrett Gallery, New York, NY; James Cohan, New York, NY; Harper’s Gallery, New York, NY; Unit London, London, UK; AM/PM Gallery, London, UK; Sea View, Los Angeles, CA; Sarah Brook Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Coma Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Embajada, San Juan, PR; Everyday Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium; North Loop, Williamstown, MA; Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA; and NADA House, Governors Island, New York, NY. Mao currently lives and works in Ridgewood, Queens.