“. . . Exactly where do creative ideas for a body of artwork come from?
If I mindfully document my journey will I discover their source?”
Those
are the words spoken by performance artist Marya in the poetic
narrative of her fifteen minute video that chronicles her year-long
creative journey in search of the current exhibition at THE MUSEUM OF
ETHNOGRAPHY entitled MESSAGES FROM THE UNIVERSE: ARTIST IN SEARCH OF A
SHOW. Her video offers the viewer a window onto one artist’s fragmented
mindscape, revealing ethnography not normally visible to the public. It
is a place strewn with threads of dangling ideas, concepts that
evaporate into detours, false starts, frustrations and discontinuity.
And yet, peppered throughout her story, are extraordinary revelations
in the form of offerings from “the universe” not easily explained that
magically appear to propel Marya’s work forward. Ultimately, Marya is
guided to create fabric-collaged paintings, a mosaic, and a five screen
work-in-progress that hang in her exhibition.
Marya, a
performance artist with The Museum of Ethnography, her studio/
alternative gallery, (22 South Third Street, second floor, Easton
Pennsylvania 18042), annually produces multimedia shows. This year’s
presentation (the tenth show at the Museum) opens on Saturday, October
18, 2008 at 6:00 p.m.- 9:00 p. m. The museum exhibition runs through
June 30, 2009. Museum hours are Tuesday’s and Friday’s 11a.m. to 4 p.m.
and by appointment.
Marya holds a BFA from Centenary College,
and a MFA from Vermont College. Her ritualistic, often feminist-based
work is overlaid within anthropological references. Free tours of The
Museum of Ethnography are conducted by Professor Clarity (Marya’s
cultural anthropologist performance avatar).
For further information contact her at 908-689-0079..