Maria Rivans is a contemporary British artist, known for her scrapbook-style collages that fuse together surrealism and Pop-Art.

Growing up with her Italian family in Essex, hours of her childhood were spent drawing, doodling, listening to music or plastering her bedroom walls with film and pop icons like David Bowie, Vivienne Westwood, Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch who all contributed to her aesthetic. Artists Max Ernst; Frida Kahlo; Robert Rauschenberg; Richard Hamilton; David Hockney; Sarah Lucas; and Tracey Emin were also huge influences.

Maria studied 3D design at the University of Brighton, before turning to jewellery design and setting up her own workshop- a kooky building, purpose built as a small cinema in 1911.

Her process begins with her extensive collection of vintage ephemera, from books and retro magazines found in second-hand shops and at market stalls. Like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, Rivans begins to collate and assemble the skilfully cut-out fragments and scraps until the collage begins to take shape. Through an intense attention to detail and an artistic sensitivity to colour and composition, each of her artworks is the product of months of careful deliberations and decisions, every tiny tweak necessary in the final formation.

In 2015, Rivans was invited to show at Christies, London, for their ‘Out of the Ordinary’ sale. Pin-up portrait ‘Lady Valentina’ is used as the campaign image for both the London and Milan affordable art fairs; ’Carina’, the face of the Scoop International Fashion Show at Saatchi for 2015; and ‘Scarlett’ head the 2015 Nordea Private Banking campaign for Stockholm Affordable Art Fair. In 2017 and 2018, her work featured in The Times newspaper; and, in 2018, her Film Still ‘Understanding Nothing’ was selected for the Royal Academy’s 250th Summer Exhibition. Rivans was a featured artist on BBC’s Art Ninja show in 2019 and in 2020 she had her first book Extraordinary Things to Cut Out and Collage published.