Strange Vista | Mary Griffin

In Strange Vista, Griffin traces personal and environmental narratives across the vast landscape of the American Southwest. Currently based in Chicago where she is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute, Griffin incorporates abstracted imagery of Southwestern topographies – mesas, canyons, mountains, desert mirages – into works that evoke and incorporate her personal memories of place. In layering together different temporalities into strange vistas and landscapes, Griffin employs a materially peripatetic approach to image-making, constructing her paintings and works on paper from oil, acrylic, charcoal, and spray paint, while also including garments saved from the decade she spent thrifting clothes, antique feedbags passed down from her grandmother, ephemera from art exhibitions and punk shows in Arizona, and holographic wrapping paper. The use of these disparate materials, and the presence of regional signifiers like the iconic Chevy El Camino, transform her paintings into a lived repository of memory adorned with rusted cars and etched with the uranium tailings of her Southwestern youth. 

Extended Hours May 19th - 21st
 Dreamsong will have extended hours to experience the exhibition during the annual Art-A-Whirl open studio crawl weekend. Also on view in the Cinema will be Short Stories for Discerning Readers, a collection of 200 (or so) small collaborative works on paper by Melba Price and Bruce Tapola - opening reception Saturday May 20th, 4-6PM

• Fri 12-5
• Sat 12-8 (Reception 4-6PM)
• Sun 12-5

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Mary Griffin (b. 1986, Flagstaff, AZ) was raised in the Southwestern U.S., attending Northern Arizona University (BA, 2010) and then moving to Tucson, where she worked for years in the vintage clothing industry. Currently based in Chicago, she received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute in 2021. Now a lecturer in painting at SAIC, Mary also works at Chicago’s Goldfinch Gallery. Her work has been included in recent exhibitions at the Design Museum of Chicago, Sulk Gallery, Chicago, Hair & Nails, Minneapolis, and Everybody Gallery, Tucson (forthcoming). In 2022, Mary was invited by Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam to participate in the nido residency and exhibition at Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy. 

Maintaining a painting practice since childhood, Mary’s ethereal work pushes the medium’s boundaries, incorporating both a wide variety of both traditional (oil, acrylic, charcoal, spray paint, etc.) and nontraditional materials (clothing, found objects, ephemera) on canvases that showcase a deeply personal, multilayered vision of her Southwestern upbringing.

For more information on the exhibition check out Dreamsong's website here.

Gallery Hours
Saturdays: 6-8 PM
Opening Reception: May 6th, 6-8PM
Exhibition on view May 6 - June 17, Wed-Sat 12-5pm + by appt 

Image: Bye Marilyn, 2022. Acrylic and image transfer on canvas. 48 x 60 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Dreamsong.