Maya Portner grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii. She earned a BFA in Sculpture from Washington University School of Art in St. Louis and an MFA in Art at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Maya has exhibited nationally in St. Louis, MO, and Brooklyn, NY. As part of her graduate research, Maya spent time at the Museum of Natural History ‘La Specola’ in Florence, Italy, where her work has since been exhibited. Her sculptures were included in the Holland Paper Biennial of 2008 in Den Haag, The Netherlands. Maya has been artist-in-residence internationally: at “Waaw” Residency in Senegal in 2015 and at CHHAAP Baroda Printmaking Studio in Gujurat, India, in 2011. Portner is the 13th recipient of the prestigious “Catherine E. B. Cox Award for Excellence in the Visual Arts, awarded biannually by the Honolulu Museum of Art. She lives in Honolulu, where she lectures in Art and Humanities.