Maja Ruznic paints diluted, out-of-focus figures and landscapes that explore nostalgia and childhood trauma and are influenced in part by war and the refugee experience. The ritualistic nature of her work reflects religious and mythological interests, including Slavic paganism and Shamanism. The artist starts her paintings by staining the canvas with lose pigment that varies in intensity and creates a dreamy background from which she draws intriguing and mysterious figures.

Maja Ruznic (b. 1983, Bosnia and Herzegovina) is a New Mexico-based artist.
For six years following her graduation from the California College of the Arts, Ruznic worked with ink and watercolor in her small San Francisco bedroom. She refers to the loose, runny style she developed as “the drunken hand.” Ruznic has since expanded this gestural approach to oil, while still bearing the influence of water-based media.
Ruznic’s work is in the collections of the Dallas Art Museum, Dallas; The Rachofsky House, Dallas; EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland; Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; and the Jiménez–Colón Collection Collection, Puerto Rico.
Recent exhibitions include Museo di Palazzo Pretorio, Prato, Italy (2021); Harwood Museum of Art Taos (2021); Conduit Gallery, Dallas (2020); and Denny Dimin Gallery, New York (2019).
Ruznic’s solo show, Consulting With Shadows, is currently on display at Karma, New York.