Aaron Maier-Carretero
: Hook, Line and Sinker
October 4 – November 8, 2025

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 4th, 2 – 6 pm

$erious Topic$ is delighted to present “Hook, Line and Sinker,” an exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Aaron Maier-Carretero. Aaron begins with dedicated doodling, wild scribbles that spiral, breathe and multiply until something of consequence happens through his hand and lands. His forms are as strange and familiar as his own heartbeat, archetypal as mandalas but slippery as mercury, shapes that dance on the precipice of meaning, resistant to final interpretations, all the while buzzing with signature energy.

His making-of-forms continues a powerful lineage of visionary minds, none more than that of his former teacher Barbara Rossi, a legendary champion of the doodle! The Chicago Imagists, with their raw truthful seeing, were everyday mystics who trusted the wisdom flowing from their own inner rivers rather than the dried-up theories of the academy. “Doodle!” cried Rossi—like Blake crying “See!”—and the activity took root in his consciousness. From these artists Aaron learned that deep in the subconscious mind dwells an ancient intelligence, accessible through rhythm like that found in the attention that monks give to breathing, feeling the way forward toward that perfect click of recognition, that YES!

His forms emerge first as heavy black lines, solid and strong enough to hold whatever wild energies want to pour through them. Then color enters like jazz enters a quiet room—suddenly, with purpose! Then comes his child-self, Little Aaron, id unleashed to pick colors that refuse to behave properly, emotional hues, like intuitive purples and rebellious reds, sometimes wrong but always honest, the prior linear form providing structure to support the beautiful chaos.

Aaron pursues ultimately that precarious perfect balance, something solid yet floating, simultaneously weird, funny, heartbreaking and joyful—all contradictions dancing together! A visual language resistant to the apology of explanation, speaking directly to his—and our—heart’s understanding.

Aaron Maier-Carretero was born and raised in the Maryland suburbs of DC. He obtained his BFA from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and has exhibited at Queens Museum, SculptureCenter, National Arts Club, Denver Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Phillips Collection, University of Maryland Art Gallery and Washington Project for the Arts. His work is in private and public collections, including The Phillips Collection, University of Maryland Art Gallery, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Art Bank Collection. He lives and works in Los Angeles.