Maiya Lea Hartman is a self-taught multi disciplinary artist and muralist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They create in various mediums such as drawing, painting, ceramics, and mixed media. Their work is heavily figurative, with current work examining traditions of the African Diaspora and including textiles and symbols. Being self-taught, they look to their environment and memories to act as the mentors that guide their practice. They are interested in allowing their work to be a channel for Black people to experience familiarity, comfort, and nostalgia. Through familial and self-portraiture, they focus on themes of love and connectivity with memory, the ancestors, and the self. Their current work is expanding to learn about and commemorate stories of community members as well.

    In 2019 Maiya was accepted as one of nine artists in Studio 400, an incubator program for early-career artists. Since then, Hartman has exhibited their work in many group shows, most notable the Beginning of Everything: An Exhibition of Drawings at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery where their earlier drawings were displayed along the likes of Henri Mattisse and Diego Rivera as well as many other established artists. Hartman was a 2021 Hartman VSA emerging young artist award recipient through the Kennedy Center in Washington DC and has a painting included in their two year traveling exhibition, Merge. Maiya opened their first solo exhibition titled That Which Does Not Burn in July of 2022 at the Minnesota African American Heritage museum and gallery in North Minneapolis. The work is a culmination of new methods and approaches that they explored during their year long residency with the museum. Harman is a 2022 Next Step Fund Recipient and current artist in residence with the ALVERA apartments in St.Paul, Minnesota. Maiya Is the co-facilitator of Conversation Lab, a critique program available to Public Funtionary studio artits that was formed by artist Shana Kaplow and Leslie Barlow. In addition to their studio practice, Maiya works as a lead artist/collaborator with the mural collective Creatives After Curfew. Creatives After Curfew was formed In response to the murder of George Floyd as a way to bring images of healing and unity to the communities of Minneapolis. Their art's focus is in solidarity with a push for the abolition of police, community led safety, and imaging a future rooted in justice and liberation.