A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

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MaryLou Zelazny

Professor, Adjunct

Contact

Professional Site

Bio

Adjunct Professor, Painting and Drawing (1990). BFA, 1980, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Exhibitions: Museum of Contemporary Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago; Rockford Art Museum; Illinois State University; Bowling Green State University, OH; Herron Gallery, IN; Drawing Center, NY; Galleria Porta, Madeira, Portugal; Art Group, Frankfort, Germany. Collections: Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Rockford Art Museum, IL. Awards: NEA Regional Arts Fellowship; Dorland Mountain Colony Residency, CA.

Personal Statement

Art made an early entrance into Mary Lou Zelazny's Chicago childhood thanks to her immigrant grandmother, whose deviously inventive Polish backwoods parsimony was made manifest in the tireless redesign of alley pickings, resale junk, and worn out furniture. This folk nursery apprenticed Zelazny to sculpture, tailoring, jewelry, lamp making, and upholstery, among other domestic experiments. These artistic experiences led her to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where childhood memories of accumulation and decoration met the rigors of formalism, pop culture experimentation, and the masters hanging in the museum. These influences can be grasped in her early mixed media paintings and may be said to have more than a vestigial presence in her current work. The School has a significant place in her career. She has been on its faculty since 1990 and is currently Adjunct Professor in the Department of Painting and Drawing. While valuing her academic associations, she remains principally a studio artist and has a record of consistent production over three decades. Mary Lou has had numerous one-person exhibitions since the 1980's, most recently at the Carl Hammer Gallery in April 2014. She was the subject of a comprehensive retrospective at the Hyde Park Art Center in 2009. Her work has been exhibited in various galleries and museums throughout the United States.

A comprehensive 35 year overview is available at: marylouzelazny.com

Her 2014 show can be reviewed at hammergallery.com

 

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This drawing studio serves as a broad introduction to historical and contemporary drawing practices. This course presents drawing as an organizer of thought, experience, and image.

Students will investigate a full range of drawing materials and supports. Lectures and exercises introduce various concepts of drawing, possibly including illusionistic form and space, gesture and expressive mark-making, or collage and found imagery, depending on the instructor?s emphasis.

Designed to accommodate many skill levels, students can explore various creative strategies through technical drawing exercises, material explorations, and individual projects. Structured classroom critiques will bring drawing concepts into personal student work.

Class Number

1607

Credits

3

Description

Figure painters have used photographs since its invention, using it as an efficient recording tool. This multi-level class seeks to examine the role photography plays as a source for subjects, while assessing its strengths and limitations as opposed to pre-photographic traditional methods. Students will learn how to select essential information from observation to deepen their use of photography, as well as sharpen their ability to recreate visual information from daily memory drawing exercises.

Students will work on painting projects focusing on three main themes; observation of the model, photographs, and recalled memory studies, culminating in an independent final project using all of the presented approaches. The concentration on blended visual inspirations helps students identify their strengths and fosters the development of their chosen subject matter. The class seeks to give students the tools needed to develop and sustain a body of work outside of the classroom environment.

Students complete six paintings in class, produce daily memory sketches, and submit one final project. Painting and drawing techniques are reviewed alongside each project, accommodating all levels of experience. Daily lectures and demonstrations clearly outline the technical approaches of each project. Examples from art history and contemporary art will be shown for each area of focus through the lectures and bi-weekly visits to view reference material in the Ryerson Library. Additionally, we will use the museum, the Joan Flasch Artists Book Collection and related local exhibitions for examples and research.

Class Number

2198

Credits

3