Press Release – CHANDLER, AZ
For more information contact Yvonne Villareal-Torres at 480-782-2695
For the 2015 – 2016 Visual Arts Gallery Season
You Only Live Once and This Could Be the Once:
Stories About Living, Artworks of Mary Bruns
March 11, 2016 – April 23, 2016
Opening Reception Friday March 18, 2016 7 – 9 PM
Mary Bruns is an artist using split imagery as a means of expression. The activity of
one side of the painting or drawing is filled with the thoughts, activities and
memories which best describe the person whose full portrait is juxtaposed next
to it. The portraits are always a monochromatic choice of colors, while the
opposing split view, in a mode of realism, is either black and white or in color.
She describes her painting as “collective realism”. She uses her art as a chief
means of creating visual energy to satisfy and explain a situation, a life, an
encounter or a human dilemma, the same way a theater visit gives explanations
and insights.
“I use old photographs, photos that I have taken and advertising as references
and models in my artworks. I give vintage photography a story and stage, and I
enjoy the process of painting or drawing each one to look like a photograph or
the exacting of an ad.”
“I use glaze over glaze technique as the old masters did. At no time are transfers
ever used. Ordinary objects become quite extraordinary if time is taken to look
at them.”
During Mary’s formal training she states that no one taught her to paint. She
made up her own formulas and researched old master glaze formulas. All of her
instructors were abstract artists and respected her because she was working in
realism. “They left me alone to create images that I wanted, the way I wanted
to.”
Mary Bruns is a deep rooted art history person. She studied baroque painters
and interpreted their representation. She incorporated the style into her own
means of painting. Mary Bruns has exhibited all over the United States for over
thirty years and is included in the permanent art collection of the Museum of
Contemporary Art Atlanta, as well as in numerous private collections.
Mary Bruns currently works from her studio in Cave Creek, Arizona. For more
information visit www.marybrunsart.com
What: You Only Live Once and This Could Be the Once: Stories About Living,
Artworks of Mary Bruns
Where: Chandler Center for the Arts, 250 North Arizona Avenue, Chandler AZ
85225
When: March 11, 2016 – April 23, 2016
Opening Reception: Friday March 18, 2016
7 – 9 PM
More information: Yvonne Villareal-Torres at 480-782-2695
Sample images available on request.
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