Maaya credits her photojournalist approach to SCAD teacher and photographer, Jaclyn Cori Norman. Each exhibit started as a class project with Norman but became much more than that in the photographic process. Maaya reflects on her past exhibits “Girls Ward: Left” in 2019, “Moulting” in 2019, and her upcoming show “Home Away From Home” in 2021. “Everything I have done has been under her [Norman’s] direction,” Maaya said. “I wouldn’t be the artist, photographer, student, I am without her.” “Home Away from Home” took a different approach to the project than when she started. The nature of the ten sets of twins shifted, inspired by the unconventional free-spiritedness of the Pendergrass Family, which set an entirely different tone for the photo direction. “I remember shooting, and I thought, ‘I don’t know if these photos are going to fit the rest of them. I might not be able to use them in the project,’” Maaya said. “And then, when I saw the final images and I put them all together, I realized that the other pictures didn’t fit these.” Maaya remembers buying her 4x5 camera from the late SCAD professor Tom Fischer’s widow, Sharon. Christine “Chrissy” Pendergras, photographer and mother of Ruby and Ava, learned to shoot on the same camera that Maaya is now using to document Chrissy’s children 20 years later. “It’s more than just a job now; this is my family, and that’s why it’s called “Home Away From Home,” because that is exactly what it is,” Maaya said. ”This is my second home, if not my first home above anything else. They have become a pivotal piece of my time in Savannah.” Cedar House Gallery will be hosting an opening reception for Robin Elisa Maaya’s senior showcase “Home Away From Home” April 30, from 6-9 p.m. with live music from Greta Schroeder. The exhibition will be on view April 30 through May 2 with an artist talk on May 1 at 2 p.m.“I soon realized that this would be a false representation of them. Their family is absolutely not perfect nor ethereal, but instead unique and chaotic, in the very best way.” -Robin Elise Maaya
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