
Mary Jo Maute: Shape Shifting
October 10 – January 11
Opening reception Thursday, October 10 from 6 to 8 pm
“I’m interested in making paintings that are brave looking — where people can see that I’m not afraid to make a mark, and I’m not afraid to make mistakes. I like to see how far I can push the imagery and the spaces within a painting and still have it cohere.” – Mary Jo Maute
Artist Statement
Maute’s artwork unfolds as a mesmerizing visual dance to the intricacies and resilience of nature. Each piece is a choreographed symphony where fragments of abstract human, plant and animal forms collide, interconnect, and transform in a fluid dreamlike space, producing work that is visually imaginative and open to interpretation. As an improvisational artist, Maute’s process evolves over time, leaving a visual record of the process and a visually challenging interplay between color, shape, movement, and mark.
Her daily studio time is filled with the joy of experimentation and discovery, as she strives to make paintings that are at once mysterious and suggestive. At a distance, her canvases offer an appealing arrangement of strong color areas. Then, on closer viewing, you see they are full of forms that suggest fictional creatures and symbols.
Maute’s style is grounded in the work of modern masters of expressionism, abstraction and symbolism. A graduate of Daemen University in Buffalo, NY with a BFA, Maute earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from the University of Colorado, Boulder. A resident of Bellingham, WA, Maute has a studio at Bay Street Village in the historic Old Town Arts District. Her work has been exhibited nationally and is in many private and public collections, including the Yellowstone Art Museum and Missoula Art Museum.
For more information, visit her website and follow her on facebook and instagram