Maria Kozic

Maria Kozic (born 10 August 1957) is an Australian feminist painter, sculptor, designer, musician, and video artist originally from Melbourne, who currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York City. Kozic came to prominence as a member of the Philip Brophy-led experimental art collective → ↑ →, before establishing herself as a leading member of Australia's avant-garde and conceptual art movements in the 1980s and 1990s.

Career Kozic studied art at the Phillip Institute of Technology in the northern Melbourne suburb of Preston. In 1978, she joined → ↑ → (pronounced tsk tsk tsk), playing synthesiser and singing in the group originally based out of the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre. As a member of → ↑ →, Kozic performed or exhibited post-punk and experimental music, film, and visual art internationally, before Brophy dissolved the group in 1986. Kozic and Brophy continued to collaborate through the 1980s and 1990s.

In 1992, Kozic released the experimental synth-pop album Viral Pulse under the name Maria Kozic and the MK Sound, under Brophy's label Present Records.

As a designer, Kozic has created album artwork for David Chesworth and Essendon Airport. Critic Adrian Martin described Kozic's work, which is associated with postmodernism and pop art, as "boundlessly clever, witty and inventive."

Kozic has also created installations, including the inflatable sculpture Blue Boy (1992), which was affixed to the roof of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Exhibitions As a member of → ↑ →, Kozic participated in a range of major contemporary art exhibitions in Australia. Her first solo exhibition, Maria Kozic, was staged in 1988 at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Her artwork has been exhibited across Australia, including at the National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, Art Gallery of NSW, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Heide Museum of Modern Art, as well as at galleries and museums in London, New York and Paris.