Mary Weatherford

Mary Weatherford
Born1963 (age 61–62)
Ojai, California
Education
OccupationVisual artist
Known forAbstract paintings

Mary Weatherford (born 1963) is a Los Angeles–based painter.[1][2] She is known for her large paintings incorporating neon lighting tubes. Her work is featured in museums and galleries including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden[3], Brooklyn Museum,[4] Museum of Modern Art,[5] and the High Museum of Art.[6] Weatherford's solo exhibitions include Mary Weatherford: From the Mountain to the Sea at Claremont McKenna College,[7] I've Seen Gray Whales Go By at Gagosian West,[8] and Like The Land Loves the Sea at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.[9] Her work has been part of group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art[10] and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.[11]

Life and career

Weatherford was born in Ojai, California, and raised in Los Angeles. She studied visual arts and art history at Princeton University, graduating in 1984. After graduation, she lived and worked in New York where in 1985 she was a Helena Rubinstein Fellow in the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art. She returned to Southern California in 1999 and later received an M.F.A. from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College.[12][13] Early in her career she also collaborated with her late sister, the writer Margaret Weatherford, on performance art and worked as a bookkeeper for the artist Mike Kelley.[14][15]

A career breakthrough came in 2012 with Weatherford's Bakersfield Project exhibition at the Todd Madigan Gallery at California State University at Bakersfield where she was an artist in residence. The Bakersfield paintings marked the first time she incorporated illuminated neon light tubes into her abstract paintings.[12][16] The series was inspired by the colourful neon signs she saw on old restaurant and factory buildings while driving around Bakersfield.[17]

Weatherford used neon in the Bakersfield Project and later series of paintings, such as Manhattan (2013), Los Angeles (2014) and Train Yard (2016–2020) to recreate the sensations of specific places or moments.[17] In an interview for Gagosian Quarterly she once said,  ‘I try to depict or deliver not only a visual translation of a place in time, but with that, the scent, the sound, and the feeling. Is it chilly? Is it hot? Is there a clanging sound?’[18]

Her work was included in the exhibitions Variations: Conversations in and Around Abstract Painting at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2014. That same year she received the $25,000 Artist Award from the Artists' Legacy Foundation founded by Viola Frey.[19] Examples of Weatherford's abstract paintings incorporating neon lights are held by the Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the Hammer Museum.[20][21][22] Another of her neon paintings, Past Sunset (2015), was shown at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in the 2016 exhibition NO MAN'S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection.[23] Three examples of her early work combining acrylic, ink and screen print are held by the Brooklyn Museum: Madame Butterfly (1989), Violetta (1991), and First Riddle (1991).[24]

In 2016, Mary Weatherford joined The Metropolitan Museum of Art's The Artist Project, where contemporary artists engage online with The Met's historical collections connecting contemporary art with artistic traditions across different eras.[25][26]

An exhibition of works inspired by Titian’s “The Flaying of Marsyas” at Museo di Palazzo Grimani opened in Venice during the 2022 Venice Biennale.[27] In 2023, David Kordansky Gallery presented abstract paintings by Weatherford at Frieze Seoul.[28]

References

  1. ^ McMahon, Katherine (1 April 2016). "L.A. Habitat: Mary Weatherford". ARTnews. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  2. ^ Miranda, Carolina (30 March 2017). "With bold brush strokes and luminous neon, L.A. painter Mary Weatherford comes into her own". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  3. ^ "Search Result Details - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden - Smithsonian". Retrieved 24 August 2018.
  4. ^ "Brooklyn Museum". www.brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  5. ^ "Mary Weatherford | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  6. ^ "Gloria". High Museum of Art. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  7. ^ "Mary Weatherford: "From the Mountain to the Sea"". cmc.edu. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  8. ^ "Mary Weatherford: I've Seen Gray Whales Go By, 555 West 24th Street, New York, September 13–October 15, 2018". Gagosian. 2018-09-26. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  9. ^ "Mary Weatherford - Exhibitions - David Kordansky Gallery". www.davidkordanskygallery.com. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  10. ^ "The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  11. ^ "Pretty Raw: After and Around Helen Frankenthaler - Exhibitions - Helen Frankenthaler Foundation". www.frankenthalerfoundation.org. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  12. ^ a b Williams. Maxwell (16 May 2014). "Mary Weatherford: L.A. Confidential". Art in America. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  13. ^ s.n. (2018). "Mary Weatherford '84". She Roars. Princeton University. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  14. ^ Kjellberg, Ann (5 April 2012). "In Memoriam: Mary Weatherford". Little Star Journal. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  15. ^ Guadagnino, Kate (24 February 2017). "Mary Weatherford's Moment". New York Times Style Magazine. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  16. ^ Zhong, Fan (11 December 2014). "Mary Weatherford: Brushes with Greatness". W. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  17. ^ a b Irwin, Michael. "Mary Weatherford". Ocula.
  18. ^ "Mary Weatherford". Gagosian Quarterly.
  19. ^ Gelt, Jessica (18 September 2014). "Mary Weatherford receives Artists' Legacy Foundation Artist Award". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  20. ^ "Mary Weatherford. Coney Island II. 2012 - MoMA". www.moma.org. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
  21. ^ Smithsonian Museum (21 December 2015). "Recent acquisitions: Mary Weatherford". Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  22. ^ Hammer Museum. Mary Weatherford, Ruby I, 2012. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  23. ^ Lynch, Elizabeth (22 November 2016) "NO MAN'S LAND: Unexpected Materials". broad strokes. National Museum of Women in the Arts. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  24. ^ Brooklyn Museum. "Mary K. Weatherford – American, born 1963 ". Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  25. ^ "Metropolitan Museum Launches Final Season of Acclaimed Online Series The Artist Project - The Metropolitan Museum of Art". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
  26. ^ "The Metropolitan Museum of Art Asks Contemporary Artists About Their Favorite Works in Its Collection". Architectural Digest. 2015-02-28. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
  27. ^ Pogrebin, Robin (2022-04-20). "Mary Weatherford Brings 'Horror and Beauty' to Venice". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-10-01.
  28. ^ Louis, Andy St (2023-08-31). "Frieze Seoul 2023: what you need to know". Financial Times. Retrieved 2023-12-27.

Further reading