ABOUT

Maja Petric is an award-winning artist who sculpts with light, optics, and data to create immersive environments that preserve the atmospheres of fragile ecosystems, transform them into visceral human experiences, and embed traces of human presence across time. Since 2001, long before “AI art” entered mainstream discourse, she has collaborated with computer scientists to design custom systems merging computer vision, machine learning, and real-time environmental data with traditional forms, turning tools of industry into multisensory worlds of light and presence.

At the core of her practice is reclaiming technology from its industrial uses and reshaping it into an artistic medium, capable of evoking connections and sensations that no other medium can produce. Algorithms designed for optimization, sensors meant for monitoring, and data streams built for commerce are subverted into poetic instruments. Instead of driving consumption, they are recast as tools to preserve endangered atmospheres, to translate climate change into bodily felt experience, and to inscribe human presence as constellations of light. Through this, Petric explores taking ownership of technology rather than accepting the passive role of consumer, to see that these systems can embody values of connection and imagination when reclaimed by art.

Each of Petric’s works begins with the sublime: the shimmer of skies, the pulse of forests, the fragile rhythms of coral reefs. Viewers are drawn in by beauty and by the recognition that nature is not outside of us, but part of us. Yet once immersed, the luminous layers reveal more demanding truths: mortality, interdependence, climate change, and collective responsibility. In this way, her practice explores how technology, repurposed through art, can return us to the living world and to each other, offering values rooted not in extraction and control but in care, empathy, and ecological imagination.

EXHIBITIONS: Maja's artwork has been showcased internationally, including exhibitions at the Phillips Auction in London and Hong Kong, HOFA Gallery, FOR-SITE, Henry Art Gallery, Farol Santander Sao Paulo, MadArt Studio, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Landmark Hong Kong, The Vestibule, and others.

COMMISSIONS: She has been commissioned to produce installations for National Geographic, SEATAC Airport, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Scorpios, Landmark Hong Kong, Korean Air, and Amazon, among others.

AWARDS: Maja has received awards such as the Digital Art Award for Innovation, Lumen Prize for Art and Technology, the Microsoft Research Award, the Richard Kelly Light Art Award, the Doctoral Fellowship from the National Science Foundation, and others.

SCIENTIFIC RECOGNITION: Maja collaborates with computer scientists to develop custom media. These custom technologies have been recognized in scientific publications and featured in international computer science conferences such as The Conferences on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), The International Conferences on Computer Vision (ICCV), The International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), etc.

PRESS: Her work has been featured in many international publications, including The New York Times, BBC, Fast Company, FRAME magazine, The Seattle Times, Deutsche Welle, etc.

SPEAKING: Maja's insights into innovative art practices have led her to speak at prestigious venues, including Christie’s, The National Gallery in London, Microsoft Research, Seattle Art Fair, IBM, Mexico City Lighting EXPO, and Philips.

TEACHING: She has taught at the University of Washington, Complutense University of Madrid, European Institute of Design, and Technical University of Madrid. In 2016, she designed and directed the first-of-its-kind graduate program “Creative Lighting” at the European Institute of Design in Madrid, Spain. 

EDUCATION: Maja holds a Ph.D. in Digital Arts and Experimental Media from the University of Washington and a Masters in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University.