“I was born in South Africa beneath the Southern Cross, where my earliest teachers were trees, birds, and the red soil under my feet. From the beginning I listened to the natural world and shaped it into song, story, and art. I became an international artist, exhibiting in museums and galleries for over two decades, yet the deeper call of the Earth eventually led me away from that world. A pivotal encounter in the desert with a Viper became an initiation, reminding me that creativity is inseparable from the wisdom of nature. Today I create sanctuaries on the land, work with sound and energy, and guide others in restoring their connection to Earth and ancestry. My art and practice serve beauty, the living planet, and those ready to hear the ancients again.”

Anja Marais is a visual artist based in Northern New Mexico. She studied Sculpture at the University of Pretoria and received her B.F.A. from the University of South Africa in 1999. Her work explores thresholds between the human and more-than-human world, often through sculpture, installation, and ritual environments that engage sound, story, and ancestral presence.

Marais has exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the University of Northern Colorado, and Bridge Red Project Space in Miami, as well as group exhibitions at the Orlando Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, and the Harwood Museum of Art. She has participated in residencies worldwide, including Sculpture Space (NY), the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation (NM), UCROSS (WY), Santa Fe Art Institute (NM), NCCA Residency (Russia), Arteles (Finland), and Mino Paper Art Residency (Japan). Her work is held in public collections such as the Orlando Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Miami, the NCCA Ministry of Culture in Russia, and the Akari Museum in Japan.

Alongside her artistic practice, Marais has engaged in long-term, cross-cultural study of ritual, ancestral memory, and embodied ways of knowing. These experiences inform the immersive and relational dimensions of her work, shaping how her installations function as spaces of listening, encounter, and reflection rather than instruction or belief.