An Artist Reborn
Maryanne Murray's 'Hot Women' series evokes the power of surrender in the face of burnout.
“I wanted to make work that describes burnout and overwhelm. But also hints at how those moments of surrender can liberate us from people pleasing and impression management.” — Maryanne Murray.
Resonant World #34
I’ve been writing a lot about my unease over my former employer Reuters’ romance with the oil and gas industry of late, so it feels like a gift to have occasion to celebrate one of the great friendships that I made while working there.
Maryanne Murray was a visual journalist for Reuters in New York when I was a climate correspondent based in London, and we worked together on the 2018 Ocean Shock series on the impact of climate change on marine communities. Maryanne quit the company last year, at about the same time I did, and devoted herself full time to pursuing her calling as an artist.
Since then, Maryanne has been in a deep process of creative gestation — latterly under the guidance of Sarah Grass, founder of the The Pack Art School, who runs a nine-month Artist Rebirth Cycle designed to birth and rebirth artistic identity.
The results will go on display tomorrow at Bob’s Gallery in Brooklyn, where Maryanne will be presenting the nine portraits in her series ‘Hot Women,’ alongside works by the other eight artists in the programme.
Here is Maryanne’s artist statement:
“I wanted to make work that describes burnout and overwhelm. But also hints at how those moments of surrender can liberate us from people pleasing and impression management.
‘Hot Women’ is a series of oil paintings that show sweaty middle-aged women. The faces are painted from AI-generated images and don’t represent particular people. Each portrait’s subject meets the viewer’s gaze directly, ready for scrutiny. But their expressions are ambiguous, revealing a mix of exhaustion, anger, fear and determination. It’s also unclear why they are hot. The sweat could be from exertion, a hot flash or enduring another record temperature day.”
Endurance
With record temperatures punishing millions of people from Texas and Vietnam, to Iran and China, and much worse to come, I found Maryanne’s images incredibly powerful. Perhaps because they don’t represent real individuals, the faces seemed to me to capture a depth of collective suffering and endurance — and perhaps even transcendence — commensurate to the peril of our times.
There is an enormous about to be said, of course, about the relationship between art, creativity and individual, ancestral and collective trauma. Suffice to say that Maryanne’s process seems to me to embody the kind of innovation, emergence and relationality that help to liquefy frozen trauma layers. Her creative rebirth stands as a testament to the courage she displayed in breaking out of an oppressive corporate structure to share her gifts with the world.
It was a real joy for me to see Maryanne reclaiming her artistic identity so fully and openly in this way. I hope it will also serve as a reminder of the potential we all possess to build community around our creativity, and create spaces of shared awareness — no matter how overwhelming the challenges we face.
Exhibition Details
When: July 7-July 8
Opening reception: Friday, July 7, 6-9 p.m.
Open Saturday, July 8, 12-6 p.m.
Where: Bob’s Gallery, 1470 Bushwick Ave 1r, Brooklyn, NY, 11207
Works by: Sarah Grass @ssarahgrass; Gigi Gruenburg @gigi.jr; Laura Lehman @laura.leh; Ana Rosa @anarosa__x; Maryanne Murray @lightnosugar; Monika Norwid @skenedeep; Kate Parvenski @kate_parvenski; Selina Wagner @swagnerstudio; Jacqueline WayneGuite @jacqwg
I write Resonant World in my spare time from my work as an editor at nonprofit climate news service DeSmog. Support from readers is a huge boost — and that includes forwarding, sharing, or commenting in response to my posts. Any variety of coffee most gratefully accepted! Thank you for reading.