Art has been a part of MaryJo’s life since childhood. She’s always loved drawing and creating. She took art classes in high school, majored in art in college, and went on to become an art teacher for 32 years.

​

As a mixed media collage artist, she is drawn to the process of arranging textures, colors, and shapes through the layering process to create abstract compositions in which familiar elements evolve into new and ambiguous imagery, inviting viewers to make their own connections with each piece.

​

Using a combination of found materials, handmade papers, printed photos, paints, and 3-D elements, she explores themes of stylized landscapes, cityscapes, and botanicals, as well as non-objective abstractions.

​

When choosing to work more representatively, MaryJo creates pastel paintings, as the medium provides the perfect blending of drawing and painting. The rich, vibrant colors allow for blending and layering, and the stick form of pastel offers the same qualities of mark-making that she so enjoys about the drawing process.

 

Ultimately, MaryJo’s work is an invitation to pause and look deeper—to engage with the distinctions of surface and space, and to feel a sense of curiosity.