Maria Barnas (*1973 in Hoorn) is a poet and visual artist who lives and works in Bergen and Amsterdam. Her language-based work takes the shape of poetry, essays, audio works, films and installations.

Barnas studied at the Rietveld Academie and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. She has published three novels and five collections of poetry, for which she received several literary awards. Her most recent poetry collection is Diamond without an r (Prologue), published in 2022. She has been a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) since 2016.

In her work, language is a domain of power structures to be analysed and addressed, with all hesitations and questions this raises. A recurring question is: how does language influence what we see and believe we understand? Both her poetry and her visual art present startling narratives and alternative histories that invite reflection and upend our conception of reality.