etchings | drawings | oils | sculpture | mixed media | bodies of work | watercolor
etchings | drawings | oils | sculpure | mixed media | bodies of work | friezes & columns
It would be hard for me to decide what is my favorite medium. In the forty plus years that I have dared to call myself an artist, I have spent considerable time in many media. Printmaking, most specifically intaglio, and drawing consumed my earlier years. That discipline led to mixed-media pieces involving the press and other printmaking techniques in a less concise, one-of-a-kind format. The use of pigments directly on paper gave me the impetus to paint, which I have been doing for the past few years. Creating human forms in observed subway or beach poses with clay is a lot of fun and great therapy. The process, the techniques of various media, is much of what excites me about creating images.
As I look back on the bodies of work that I have done over the years in a variety of media it is clear that I work from two different places. When I am troubled about something, especially if it is beyond my control, I take comfort from processing my feelings through my hands and that has resulted in some very personal statements. I worked through the Vietnam War, a dreadful rape of a friend of my daughter, my thoughts on Hiroshima when I lived in Japan, my mother’s death, the Gulf War and portraits of child soldiers of Uganda with whom I worked in their rehabilitation camps.
When I have “said” all that I can say on the subject, it seems as if I then need to relax for a time with work that is simply statements of something that I find beautiful; the way the sun hits a building in New York City or the laundry on a line from a fire escape in Brooklyn or the reflections on the greasy water in a pot in the sink.
I love color, form, line and texture and when I am able to use those elements in a way that I feel expresses my sense of things, I am pleased.
ABOUT Mary Westring
EDUCATION:
The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and Madison
The Ruth Leaf Studio, Douglaston, Queens
AFFILIATIONS:
The Society of American Graphic Artists
The Long Island Arts Council at Freeport
The Williamsburg Art and Historical Society (WAH Center)
ONE WOMAN EXHIBITIONS (PARTIAL LIST)
Figureworks Gallery Brooklyn NY 2012
Williamsburg Art and Historical Center (WAH) Brooklyn NY 2012 2008, 2002
Soma, Brooklyn NY 2006
Figureworks Gallery Brooklyn NY 2005
Figureworks Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2002
Con Corino Gallery, Sapporo, Japan, 1996
The Long Island Arts Council at Freeport, 1994
The Nassau County Museum of Fine Arts, Roslyn, New York
Silvermine Guild or Artists, Silvermine, Connecticut
City University of New York Research Foundation, New York, New York
Princeton Art Association, Princeton, New Jersey
Recent Works Gallery, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Gloucester County College, Sewell, New Jersey
The Print Barn, Meredith, New Hampshire
The Community Center for the Performing Arts, Eugene, Oregon
The Plandome Gallery, Manhasset, New York
Hempstead Harbor Artists, Discovery Gallery, Glen Cove, New York
SMALL GROUP EXHIBITIONS (PARTIAL LIST)
WAH Center, Brooklyn NY 2008
Figureworks Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2008
Holocaust Center, Manhasset NY 2008
Holocaust Center, Manhasset NY 2007
Van Der Plas Gallery, South Street Seaport 2006
Van Der Plas Gallery, South Street Seaport 2006
Holocaust Center Manhasset NT 2006
Holocaust Center Manhasset NY 2005
Shelter Rock Gallery, Manhasset NY 2002
Figureworks Gallery, Brooklyn New York 2001
Figureworks Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2001
Magnifik, Brooklyn New York 2001
Figureworks Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2000
The Graphic Eye Gallery, Port Washington, New York
Pelham Art Center, Pelham, New York
The International Print Society, New Hope, Pennsylvania
The Felice Cole Gallery, East Setauket, New York
The Loft Gallery, Southampton, New York (invitational, Helen Harrison, NY Times Critic)
Hempstead Harbor Artists, Discovery Gallery, Glen Cove, New York
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (PARTIAL LIST)
WAH Center, Brooklyn NY 1999-2014
St. Joseph’s College “Freedom Fighters” Brooklyn NY 2014
Figureworks Gallery “My Sister’s Doll” 2014
Sans Quoi Gallery, Tamona City, Japan 2008
Holocaust Museum, Manhasset NY 2008
WAH Center Salon Show 2007
Van Der Plas Gallery NYC 2006
Holocaust Museum 2006
Holocaust Museum 2005
Bread and Roses NYC 2004
Tri County Art League 2004
Holocaust Museum, Manhasset NY 2004
Women Care, Bellingham WA 2003
Museum of New Art, Detroit Michigan “Ground Zero” 2002
Queens College, Queens, New York, 1999
Graphic Eye Gallery, 25th Anniversary Exhibition 1999
Queensboro Community College 1998
Adell McMillan Gallery, U or Oregon 1998
The Sapporo Civic Center, Sapporo, Japan, 1996
The Graphic Eye Gallery, Port Washington, New York
The Terrain Gallery, New York, New York
Adelphi University, Garden City, New York
The Los Angeles Print Society, Traveling Exhibitions
Cork Gallery, Avery Fischer Hall, Lincoln Center, New York, New York
North Shore Community Art Center, Great Neck, New York
Parrish Fine Art Museum, Southampton, New York
Heckscher Museum, Huntington, New York
Louise Himelfarb Gallery, Bridgehampton, New York
The Society of American Graphic Artists, New York, New York
Spectrum Fine Art LTD, New York, New York
Felice Cole Gallery, East Setauket, New York
Hammer Graphics, New York, New York, “Critic’s Choice”
The Queens Museum, Flushing, New York
The New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, New York
The Loft Gallery, Southampton, New York
Glen Cove Council on the Arts, Glen Cove, New York “Best Graphics on Long Island”
University of Iowa Museum of Art, Ames, Iowa
Silvermine Guild of Artists, Silvermine, Connecticut
Hempstead Harbor Artists Association, Discovery Gallery, Glen Cove, New York
Pratt Graphics, New York, New York, Traveling Miniature Exhibition
JURIED EXHIBITIONS (PARTIAL LIST)
East End Arts Council, 2001 Long Island NY Honorable Mention
Williamsburg Art Center, Brooklyn NY Apocalypse 1999
University of Oregon, Art for the Empowerment of Women, 1998
Audubon Artists Juried Competition (Medal of Honor and Honorable Mention)
Pratt Graphics Miniature Competition
Nassau Community College, Garden City, New York (Purchase Award)
Silvermine Guild of Artists
International Society of Artists (Andrew Nelson Whitehead Award)
Boston Printmakers
Charlotte Printmakers Society
Hunterdon Art Center, Hunterdon, New Jersey (Purchase Award)
WORK IN THE COLLECTION OF:
The New York Health and Hospitals Corporation
Publisher’s Clearing House
Hunterdon Art Center, Hunterdon, New Jersey
Hyatt Regency
Nassau Community College, Garden City, New York
I.B.M. Corporation
Graphic Arts, Firestone Library, Princeton, New Jersey
Working Woman’s Magazine
State University at Stonybrook
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Represented by Figureworks Gallery, Brooklyn NY
Taught: Etching, Privately 2005-09
Jackson Heights Art Club 2006-08
Work with Children of Conflict in Uganda Africa to help them produce art work depicting their trauma as child soldiers. 2000, 2001, 2002.
The Wheatley Schools, Adult Program, Williston, New York
Baldwin Schools, Adult Program, Baldwin, New York
Horizon Program, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, New York
Director and Instructor, Etching Program, The L.I. Arts Council at Freeport
Artist in Residence, New York State Foundation on the Arts
Figuresworks, group show 2016
WAS Salon group show. 2017
Owner/Principle, “Art Applied”, 1992-present
Recipient, The L.I. Arts Council at Freeport “Arty” for excellence in the visual arts, 1994
Executive Director, First Night Freeport, Freeport, New York, 1993, 94
Coordinator and Lecturer, Etching Demonstration Program funded by the New York
State Council on the Arts
Vice President, President, The Graphic Eye Gallery, Port Washington, New York
Board Member, Second and First Vice President, The L.I. Arts Council at Freeport
Studio Assistant, The Ruth Leaf Studio, Douglaston, Queens
Work Reproduced in “Intaglio Printmaking Techniques” by Ruth Leaf
Collaboration Artist, Masters Program, S.U.N.Y. at Stonybrook
Feature Articles, Print News, Art Applied work in Victorian Homes Magazine, Home Magazine of Newsday, Home Owner Magazine