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"No Hope, No Fear"
Rare solo exhibit by local "artivist" who works in monumental scale
By Staff Writer
MaryBeth Hanrahan, MB, has been invited to exhibit her individual works at Sea Breeze Art Gallery through October 25, 2008. This collaborative, multimedia artist usually coordinates large works of public art, such as the Tortilla Flats project. She emphasizes social responsibility and consciousness as primary themes.
The exhibition title, "No Hope, No Fear" comes from one of the new paintings MB will display, and refers to an element of Buddhist philosophy. This perspective, she states, is about "…being, not acting out of hope for something, or some reward, nor acting out of fear, reacting or avoiding something or someone." She says it is a challenge to release her ""Hope" habit..
Gallery owner, Sandra McC-ullough, says of the artist, "MB was one of the first artists to participate in an Open Artist call here at Sea Breeze. I love the bigness of her art work and her courage to create on such a large scale. Her work is big, loose, colorful and her brush strokes strong and meaningful. There simply is nothing small about MB."
Most recently, she has made props for the Will Smith film, Hancock, as well as working on two group mural projects. One of the latter being for the Alternate Text Production Center at Ventura College.2 She also designs t-shirts and merchandise for musicians such as Jimmy Buffet.
Sea Breeze Art Gallery
255 South Laurel St., Ventura,
CA, 93001, (805) 643-3973
MB , (MaryBeth), Hanrahan has been a resident of Ventura County since 1989. She has had the keen fortune of maintaining studios at ArtCity, Stone Works Studios, and, since 2003 Bell Arts Factory, all located in Ventura, CA. She has, in collaboration with the public, and other artists, created numerous Public Art Community Projects-most notably murals. The most recent of which, The Tortilla Flats Mural and reunion Project, completed 5/08 for the City of Ventura, created with Activist Moses Mora, is a prime example of a site specific, monumentally scaled structure that tells the story of a specific, multi-cultural community, circa 1920-40 based on oral histories and gathered photos.
In addition to being a professional Artist for 20 years, she has traveled through the US, western Europe, northern India, and Central America often solo, with only a backpack and not a lot of cash. She returned home from India and Central America broke and sold the art she had made on the journeys.
Experienced as an installation artist, she has attended 8 Burning Man festivals since 1999. She, and collaborator sTeVe Knauff were fortunate to be included in a documentary "Beyond BlackRock", released in 2005.
She makes ArtCars, and actually received a California Arts Council grant to produce 3 ArtCars in a lockdown juvenile correction facility.
Currently (8/08) she is completing a mural at Ventura College, CA, commissioned by the Alternative Text Production Center, a state agency that produces Braille and CD Rom learning materials for sight impaired students. She is completing a mural series designed and painted with incarcerated youth at Providence School in Oxnard, CA.