Violet Maimbourg Invites You to Step into Her Colorful, Compelling Carnival of Art

Violet Maimbourg’s resplendently colored, meticulously crafted sculptures immediately draw the viewer into an absurd, exaggerated carnival world born of her wicked sense of humor and mischievous mind.

“I’ve always just liked fun art because humor is a way for art to be accessible,” Violet stated. “High art isn’t really accessible for the everyday person who doesn’t have knowledge of the art world, so I prefer art that anybody can understand, and that’s important as an artist.”

Patrons of her first solo exhibition Our Love Remains, at Waterloo Arts in August and September, will thrill at the never-before-seen novelties and excitements of Violet’s creations all in one gallery. Viewers will be amazed as they step right up to the mind-bending Road to Nowhere, a colorful set of stairs with flashing lights that inexplicably dropped onto a woman’s body sprawled beneath, legs still kicking up and down.

Spectators will be stunned and flabbergasted when they find themselves face-to-face with an enormous clown face joyously biting into an equally immense, chocolate-covered donut with sprinkles, titled We Gotta Bump Up Those Joy Numbers, Girl!

Astounded attendees won’t be sure where to stand or what to do when confronted by Please Don’t Lose Faith (Willing Hands), a gigantic arm extended from the wall, its open hand offering them a flower pot with an imposing pair of scissors on the floor nearby that appears to have clipped off a part of the plant.

“I gave those pieces to Waterloo and said ‘I’d like to build this show that’s a carnival and an ode to mental health and pain and all of those things,’” Violet said as she prepared the exhibition earlier this year. “I’ve been there many times and have always wanted a show there, so I’m excited to pack that space, and I’ve been making a lot of work.”

In addition to her whimsical and slightly twisted sense of humor that makes visitors smile or laugh before they realize there’s greater depth and complexity to the pieces, Violet possesses an intense work ethic that fuels her prolific output.

“Violet brings the viewer in through the colors, lights, and kinetic elements, and then there’s this underlying darker tone to the work that is definitely what drives her,” says Isabel Farnsworth, associate professor in sculpture and Violet’s faculty advisor, Kent State University School of Art.

“Violet’s incredible in terms of her work ethic and output in how much work she makes and the technical sophistication of her work,” Farnsworth continues. “She’s an engineering marvel. […] The invention and the skills that she brings to her work are very diverse, from the body casting in silicone, [with] the incredible detail and lifelike qualities she gets [with that], as well as the latest works where she’s carving large-scale foam and working with fiberglass.”

Violet’s broad and diverse range of creations initially had featured kinetic work with found objects, mainly because she was living in a small, two-bedroom apartment with one bedroom as a studio. She likes experimenting, though, so began developing her carnival aesthetic once she had more space to work at KSU.

Looking at her oeuvre to date, Violet has created sculptures characterized by amusing, beautiful, or often painful or deeply personal images that reflect her ongoing journey of healing.

“Since day one, my art’s been a way to explain to others how I feel because I was always hyper-sensitive emotionally as a kid, and it felt like nobody around me realized, and I never fully understood that this was significantly affecting me,” Violet reveals. “I was bullied a lot, and I had a lot of emotional depression as young as twelve, anxiety, and that was really hard and nobody understood, so I view art as a way to portray my experiences and how I thought that I was alone in that situation.”

“I never want anyone else to feel like they are alone in feeling those things, because I bet more people than are willing to admit have been suicidal or depressed or anxious,” Violet continues. “Being able to have some vulnerability and think this artist is being so vulnerable right now that it could be safe for me to also admit that I’m struggling. One of my objectives has always been how do I take what’s inside my head and show it to you so that you can relate or understand me more.”

As for her prolificity as an artist, Violet says that’s just how she works.

“My creative process is kind of weird in that it happens to me instead of me purposely doing anything,” explained the Orange Village native. “The staircase on top of the person with their legs kicking came to me as I was driving to my parent’s house one Sunday, and when things like that enter my brain, I see the finished product in my head, and then it’s just fulfilling these steps to complete it.”

Reflecting on the speed and volume of her artworks, Violet adds “I don’t want to call them visions because that sounds hokey, and a lot of people have trouble comprehending how I make stuff so quickly, efficiently and intentionally, but I just see the finished thing, and I make it.”

Brittany Hudak, gallery coordinator for Waterloo Arts, says the gallery is thrilled to be hosting the exhibition Violet prepared while completing her MFA at KSU.

“Our exhibition committee was impressed with her proposal that the artist plans to transform our main gallery space into a carnival filled with brightly colored sculptures emulating different carnival amusements with dark undertones about love, relationships, and self,” she said.

Hudak added that the timing of the show coincides perfectly with the 2026 Waterloo Arts Fest from noon to 7 pm on Saturday, September 12.

“Violet’s exhibition will perfectly complement the carnival atmosphere of the arts and music Fest,” she says. “That day we expect hundreds of visitors going through the gallery who will get to see and interact with Violet’s artwork.”

In middle and high school, Violet started her career as a maker by creating and selling tutorial videos about how to craft things like a toy Gatling gun, animal puppets and other props for movies. When the YouTube videos became quite popular, Violet earned “thousands of dollars” in advertisement revenue.

Violet gained her mechanical skills dissecting various radios and other devices she had acquired on shopping trips with her mother. She then spent hours in her basement taking the radios and other electronic equipment apart and rewiring them.

“I was never any good at, but I liked doing it because I liked to know how and why things worked the way they did,” she informs, adding that she also loved assembling Legos and erector sets. “I was interested in all sciences and physics, engineering, but engineering would have required too much math. I can make robots as art, so that was easier for me.”

Also a skilled photographer, Violet initially decided to study filmmaking after high school by attending film school at Pratt Institute’s Film/Video Department in Brooklyn. Her career plans were derailed, however, when she developed a serious substance use issue.

“I came back to Cleveland and floundered around for a bit,” Violet recalls. “Then I really got sober and thought, ‘Okay, what do I really want to do with my life,’ so I went to the Cleveland Institute of Art from 2018 to 2021. I could have been a junior in video, but that was going to be boring so I majored in sculpture. Then I fell in love, and I’ve never been more passionate about anything, and it’s been great fun.”

Zachary Smoker, then a studio technician and adjunct faculty at CIA, encouraged Violet to become a studio technician because of her exceptional skills with fabricating.

“Violet’s technical faculties and ability to pick up new materials and processes evolved as her ideas ranged from life casting and silicone work to steel fabrication, and she taught herself to do animatronic work as well as lighting, electrical engineering and some coding,” says Smoker, now director of studio operations at CIA. “When you see her work, you don’t know necessarily what you’re going to get, and that’s what’s engaging and exciting and keeps me following an artist.”

Being as comfortable with a circular saw or drill or welding torch as she is with a paintbrush enabled Violet to help students out in the CIA studios as a studio tech for two years, and do some fabrication work for Rebuilders Xchange (RBX) in Cleveland.

“I was teaching students how to use tools and make things, and it was very low-paid but I had the most amazing co-workers who taught me a lot of things,” Violet says. “I thought maybe I should go to grad school and get the MFA and be official so I can become a professor.”

Since 2024, graduate school in KSU’s art department allowed Violet to expand both artistically and physical-space-wise, since she had the room and freedom to wield a wide choice of tools to shape substantial pieces in her workshop space. Sometimes so sizable that storage can be a challenge. In fact, Violet laughs when she says her parents have informed her they can accommodate no more of their artistic child’s pieces in their “home gallery.”

Her proficiency in tools and fabrication continues to amaze her colleagues. Farnsworth delights in retelling the time she returned to the art department after winter break and found that Violet had completely disassembled a failing horizontal band saw, then painted, repaired and oiled every part before reassembling the equipment so that it worked like new.

“Violet’s got so many skills and this great energy about her,” Farnsworth said. “She’s always very positive and has been an amazing role model for the students she teaches as a graduate assistant as well as other undergrads and her grad student cohort.”

The artist’s mentor and friend Zak Smoker adds “Violet’s drive to master those skills and be familiar and competent so she can push the boundaries has always been a priority for her, and that’s evident in her work, specially the kinetic components.”

Last summer, University Hospitals Portage Medical Center in Ravenna contacted Kent State Galleries seeking an art student to craft a public sculpture for its healing garden. Violet created a steel butterfly constructed of three-eighths-inch steel plate with a half-inch steel base that weighs in at about 400 to 500 pounds, she estimates.

“I was probably the only person with welding and metalworking experience that could pull off something like that, so I agreed to take on the commission,” Violet said of her first public sculpture. “I spent the whole summer making this hefty thing by myself. It should have been a team of four people but it was just me. Next time I need to budget for an assistant, but it was really fun.”

In April, Violet landed a job as fabrication technician at the Harpur College of Arts and Sciences at the State University of New York at Binghamton. She loves teaching and hopes to move into a professor position at some point in her career, as well as return to New York City.

Wherever she lands down the road, she will continue to make art, and hope to sell her work to galleries and museums. Violet’s love of film remains strong, too, and she would love to design and develop props or be an art director.

In May, Violet wowed everyone with her master’s thesis project, a five-day exhibition of her carnival works, and thesis defense to earn her MFA. The project served as a perfect preview to her Waterloo Arts show.

“I’m sad to be moving away, but I’m excited to graduate, and I’m grateful that my first solo show will be in my hometown of Cleveland,” concludes Violet. “I hope the world likes what I make!”