Maiyap has always been drawn to the world of art. Within the walls of her parents’ home, she was deeply influenced by the beauty, balance, and perfection of Chinese millennial traditions passed down through generations. Beyond those walls, her senses were awakened by the vibrant colors, sounds, and energy of the Tropics. Panama’s lush natural surroundings became a lively backdrop, filled with dynamic people, places, and music. This unique fusion of ancestral heritage and tropical vibrancy is vividly present in her work, where delicate yet striking colors burst forth on every canvas. From the start of her career, Maiyap’s mastery of color and her unconventional close-up depictions of flowers earned her recognition as one of South Florida’s premier floral painters. Her landscapes, inspired by Van Gogh’s impressionistic pointillism and created entirely with palette knives, allowed her to reintroduce this innovative technique, which she later shared with others through teaching. In recent years, Maiyap has undergone a profound artistic evolution, questioning her beliefs about the environment and channeling these reflections into her work. This shift led her to embrace abstraction as her primary form of expression. Her latest series, Environmental Abstracts, captures the dynamic essence of nature in motion. Through a painstaking process, she applies pure oils stroke by stroke, layer by layer, weaving a tapestry-like texture that mirrors the natural world’s cycles. Maiyap’s process takes an emotional turn when she destroys the image upon completion, making deep cuts into the surface to symbolize the harm inflicted upon the Earth. The resulting textures, ranging from smooth to dramatically thick, have earned her work the description of “sculptures in oils.” With her powerful and sometimes whimsical strokes, Maiyap seeks to provoke questions and spark conversations, using her art as a compelling medium to communicate her environmental message.