Maiken enjoyed art and design at school, studied Architecture at Victoria University and now works as a Design and Visual Communication teacher at Karamu High School in Hastings. She began painting once she completed university, and was most inspired by the places she lived overseas such as Amsterdam, Galway and Edinburgh in 2003 and 2004. In the 10 years after while living back in Wellington she produced numerous paintings mainly of Wellington, and the neighbourhoods she lived in.  In 2015 Maiken returned to her home town of Hastings and has documented that experience through a series of mainly architectural photographs which were displayed in the window of the Common Room in Heretaunga Street.  Her photobook “Stings” brings all of these together. Maiken is a passionate advocate for Hawke’s Bay and in the last 8 years has produced a number of paintings with Hawkes Bay as the predominant subject matter.  She has exhibited her paintings in a number of exhibitions, including East 2020 at the Hastings City Art Gallery. Her paintings incorporate vibrant colour, panoramic views, strong perspective, and observation of light as distinctive to the season or time of day.  In 2022 Maiken completed her Fulbright Teaching Scholarship at Indiana University Pennsylvania.  She enjoyed the opportunity to participate in a landscape painting course which pushed her to paint in new ways, with previously untried subject matter and with multiple paintings being produced at any given time.  This renewed passion for painting has led Maiken to join the Art Guide and Art Trail this year and to produce a larger number of paintings in the last year than ever.  
Look out for her exhibition at Arts Inc Heretaunga which will run from the 20th of January until the 1st of February 2025