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American

1898-1976

Mary Weatherford

American-born artist Mary Weatherford originally hails from the small town of Ojai, California, and she currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Born in 1963, Mary Weatherford studied at the prestigious Milton Avery School of the Arts, Bard College in Red Hook, New York. She holds an MFA and a BA in Art History from Princeton University.

 

Mary Weatherford is known for many things, but she is most closely associated with her rich and colorful paintings. These unique works of art are able to achieve a rare harmony between bold bright colors and polychromatic representations.

 

Her works are known for their natural beauty, and they are clearly inspired by natural landscapes. Combining the natural beauty of a photograph with the stunning realism of colorful painting, Mary Weatherford creates works that evoke a strong reaction in all who see them.

 

It is clear that Mary Weatherford is inspired by the beauty of nature, and the artist often uses sketches from her native California as inspiration. These seascapes may start as raw sketches, but they end up as stunning, and stunningly colorful, works of art.

 

Those finished canvasses pop with color, bringing to mind the rolling hillsides, breaking waves and stunning seashores of her native California. But it is not only California that inspires Mary Weatherford, and she has recently been exploring an entirely different set of natural and artificial landscape.

 

In addition to her time in California, Mary Weatherford spent a great deal of time in New York City, where she was intrigued by the neon light fixtures that seemed to be affixed to every imaginable surface. Those same neon light fixtures have found their way into her most recent paintings, giving a new twist to those traditional natural landscapes.

 

These later works have brought new interest to Mary Weatherford, drawing on her past experiences and bringing her style full circle. Serving as both traditional paintings and large scale installations, the works that Mary Weatherford is now exhibiting work on a number of different levels.

 

The medium may be new, but the success is definitely not. Indeed, Mary Weatherford has exhibited her work throughout the United States, including well known museums, prestigious art galleries and collections both public and private. Among the venues where Mary Weatherford has showcased her work are the Hammer Museum in her home of Los Angeles, the nearby Orange County Museum of Art and Boston University.

 

Mary Weatherford has also enjoyed great success with her gallery shows, including private exhibitions at Brennan and Griffin in New York City, the Rubell Collection in Miami and many other venues from coast to coast. Her success is further proof that hard work, dedication and talent can still propel modern artists to greatness.

 

What is also clear in the work of Mary Weatherford is that her paintings are actually contemplations on the nature of life, death and mortality. The evocative nature of her paintings is evident even to the casual observer, but the effect is particularly pronounced when viewing the works in person. Many gallery visitors have left Mary Weatherford's shows visibly moved, and it is this focus on life and mortality that makes her work so special.

 

By using the natural landscapes and seascapes of California and the artificial neon landscapes of New York City as her backdrop, Mary Weatherford is able to bring a new freshness, and a new reality, to these seemingly commonplace and well known objects. Both moody and bright, tangled and contemporary, weathered and bright, these unique works of art are an integral part of the modern American art world.

 

Fittingly, Mary Weatherford has often said that she is most strongly influenced by artists with a similarly metaphysical approach to nature in all its glory. Those inspirational artists run the gamut, from Charles Burchfield and Marsden Hartley to Agnes Pelton and Georgia O'Keeffe. Those influences are clearly at work in the work of Mary Weatherford, but this American-born artist and Los Angeles institution brings something new, and her own unique twist, to each canvas she creates.

 

While seemingly abstract, the works that Mary Weatherford creates have a natural beauty all their own. When viewers look at her canvases, they can see, and feel, the beauty of the Californian coast, the fast-moving chaos of a New York City street and the stunning natural ambiance of a California redwood forest. It is no wonder Mary Weatherford has established such a powerful reputation as a modern conceptual artist and bringer of beauty.