ERICA MAHINAY

Early Life and Background

Mahinay was born in 1986 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and began painting as a child, inspired by her mother. She completed her BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute in 2008 and received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, in 2013. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Erica Mahinay Artworks

Erica Mahinay creates paintings that oscillate between architectural structure and abstraction. Her practice is defined by a unique physicality, blending intuitive gesture with a meditative approach to materials. Often using her body to manipulate pigment—dripping, pouring, scrawling, and erasing—she achieves luminous compositions marked by rhythmic tension and layered surfaces. The artist paints, using both acrylic and oil paint, on traditional support materials like canvas and linen but also on other fabrics, such as silk parachute fabric.

Mahinay’s painting process often involves activating the surface by tossing raw pigment onto wet grounds and manipulating layers through wiping, rubbing, and subtracting—building a radiant substratum of color that resonates beneath the visible skin of each work. The evolution of each composition unfolds through a rhythmic push and pull, alternating between improvisational movements and careful, meditative interventions. This dynamic interplay results in paintings that glow with optical depth, where tranquil passages collide with vigorous marks, embodying the tension between spontaneity and contemplation.

Mahinay’s works frequently explore existential themes: the relationship between self and environment, memory and material, and the boundaries of perception.

Seminal Works and Evolution

• Sun Seeker (2019) and Lunar Tryst (2022–2023): Large-scale paintings incorporating parachute fabric, highlighting Mahinay’s interest in movement, material, and the unexpected.
• Engagements (Josh Lilley, London, 2025): In her first UK exhibitions, Mahiney presented paintings such as Subduction, Summoned and Swept, and Volition which demonstrate her intuitive layering and gestural mark-making, suggestive of geological and tidal metaphors.
• Earlier series, presented in exhibitions including Touch Knows You Before Language (Lyles & King, New York, 2019) and Let the Breath Breathe Itself (Lyles & King, New York, 2019), investigate home, nostalgia, and the sensory knowledge of touch.

Select Awards and Accolades

• Mahinay’s work is included in major public collections, such as the Marciano Art Foundation (Los Angeles) and the Pinault Collection (Paris).
• In 2023, Erica Mahinay’s artwork was featured in the Hammer Museum‘s biennial exhibition Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living.
• Recipient of prestigious international artist-in-residence programmes.

Erica Mahinay Exhibitions

Mahinay has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions at important institutions and galleries internationally. In 2023, her work was featured in Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living at the Hammer Museum.

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Engagements, Josh Lilley, London (25 April–8 June 2025)
• Moving From and For, T293, Rome (21 September–27 October 2023)
• The Bright Place Idea, Lyles & King, New York (29 July–5 September 2021)
• Touch Knows You Before Language, Lyles & King, New York (23 May–12 July 2019)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Once the Block is Carved, There Will Be Names, Galerie Greta Meert, Brussels (2025)
• What Dreams May Come, Make Room, Los Angeles (2024)
• Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2023)
• LA Dreams 3 Light Touch, CFHILL, Stockholm (2022)
• Electric Affinities, T293, Rome (2022)

Website and Instagram

Erica Mahinay’s official website can be found here, and Instagram here.

Erica Mahinay FAQs

Ocula | 2025