Mariah has been creating art for as long as she can remember, art has always been her favorite outlet. In high school, a neighbor gave Mariah an old tin filled with long, colored charcoal pencils. Mariah had never had an interest in exploring with charcoal, but these pencils were different. They created a moveable, blendable medium. The blending of endings and beginnings with precise lines simultaneously gave Mariah a newfound feeling of freedom within her art. This expanded her creativity and soon led her to question, “what if I did this with paint on canvas?”. Her love for abstract painting with acrylic was instant. Nearly 24 years later, abstract acrylic on canvas is still her favorite form of art to create.

Mariah has always put creativity at the forefront of her professional endeavors. Early on, she took classes at the Makeup Institute in San Francisco and MAC Masterclasses in Los Angeles. She then became a freelance makeup artist for Tigerlily Salon in downtown San Luis Obispo, CA.

After exploring the makeup world, Mariah took time off to start a family. A few years later, she found a new interest and creative outlet with photography. She took a year of private photography lessons from the talented Central Coast photographer Bob Canepa. With his close mentorship, she became a photographer specializing in babies, children, and families on the Central Coast.

After photography, Mariah decided to set down her camera and pursue her deep love and passion for music. She bought herself two technics 1200 turntables and spent several months learning and teaching herself how to DJ. For five years, Mariah made a name for herself in the DJ scene, playing different venues around the Central Coast, and then gained a local residency at The Library Lounge in downtown San Luis Obispo, where she played weekly for nearly five years until the pandemic hit and DJing came to a sudden halt. The extra time on her hands due to the pandemic allowed her to slow down and enjoy the time with her children. During this time, she decided to dust off her art supplies and explore what creating with paint was like again. Mariah says that painting was something she couldn’t “slow down”to do while raising kids, but with the newfound time, “I fell back in love with painting, and I fell in love with the process again. It’s so incredibly therapeutic for my mind. It’s how I cope, how I process life. All that you see on the canvas, that’s my brain, and all of that needs somewhere to go.”

Mariah attributes her style to the fact that she has O.C.D. and A.D.D. “My art is where my O.C.D. and A.D.D. come together for me, a place where they both can exist and flow effortlessly together. In real life, that’s not always the case, but when I’m painting, they almost cancel one another out, like a true Yin and Yang. The title of one of my pieces is called, “Organized Chaos,” and that is the perfect description of my work.”

Her abstract work is fun, bold, bright, and colorful and is often described as “electric.” The majority of her pieces are painted in a way so that they can be hung in any direction. The art changes based on which way you are looking at it, which is like having multiple paintings in one. There’s a whimsical, playful element with psychedelic undertones in her work. She says the meticulous detail and repetitive patterns are her O.C.D. and the free, wild, boldness of her art is her A.D.D. “There’s definitely an inner child on the loose when I paint.”