Embrace Complexity

SPACE is pleased to announce a new window installation by printmaker and activist, Mary Tremonte on occasion of the 2019 New England Art Book Fair.

Working with printmaking in the expanded field, Mary Tremonte will create a unique “printstallation” in the SPACE window gallery. Using vibrant color, pattern, and text to create expressions of allyship, solidarity, visibility, and self-love, the artist employs cloth banners and other textile-based work that evoke both church adornment and protest signs. “Intersecting patterns represent the intersectionality of our identities and common cause,” the artist explains, encouraging a reading of the work that does “not attempting to erase our differences but to embrace them, working through conflicts with love and respect.” Check out more of Mary’s work at her table during the 2019 New England Art Book Fair on October 4th & 5th.

Artist Statement

My work is a gesture to enable visibility, connection, and opportunity in the spirit of serious play. I endeavor to create experiences that lie at the intersection of politics and pleasure. To this end, I employ printmaking, installation, DJing, and education in my practice. As a member of Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, I work with a decentralized group of 29 artists creating prints and graphics in support of movements for social and environmental justice. I strive to make space for people of different backgrounds to come together and hear one another, to learn from others’ perspectives and experiences. Participants can build relationships through working together, and diverse individuals can connect through common purpose. I firmly believe that we CAN have it all…if we’re willing to face one another and to work together.

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Artist Bio

Mary Tremonte is an artist, educator, and DJ based in Pittsburgh, PA with a piece of her heart in Toronto. She is a member of Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative. As DJ Mary Mack, she strives to make safe(r) spaces on dance floors for embodying a body politic with pleasure. She has exhibited, presented lectures and workshops, and performed in Toronto, Pittsburgh, throughout the United States, and internationally with Justseeds and independently. Formerly youth programs coordinator at The Andy Warhol Museum, she values art education as a means of youth empowerment and social change.

Mary was recently an artist-in-residence at Literacy Pittsburgh through the Pittsburgh Office of Public Art’s Residency in the Public Realm, an initiative to build connections for refugees and immigrants in Pittsburgh through collaborative creative projects, and is currently working with Grow Pittsburgh on OPA’s Art, Public Health, and the Environment initiative. Through her work she aims to create temporary utopias and sustainable commons through pedagogy, collaboration, visual pleasure, and serious fun.