Artist Statement
Mari Hall describes her painting style as folk art, with a balance of ethnic references, flowing into her description of her art as African American Folk Art which probably defies formal catalogue. The influences for her contemporary oil paintings derive from a host of painters, who also embraced flat plane composition, fauvist color and abolished formal constraints of chiascuro modeling, horizon lines and light versus shadow. Her modern artist eye does not deny the influence of modern advertising, modern photography and modern humor. She describes herself as a self-taught artist leaning heavily upon the works of Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, with a host of other artists shuffled in between days and nights of perusing art in its many forms, including music. Her African American Folk Art is also influenced by Haitian paintings which fly in the face of gravity and reason into torrents of color and history. Mari Hall prefers the sticky torpid passion of oil paint with its dangers and fumes, to the more readily prized acrylic paint. The entire experience of painting with oil is sensory to the extreme, propelling her into the azure skies of creativity with a touch of Mojave Desert madness. To calm her flight into the vagaries of chaotic paint, Mari sometimes tosses out a novel, as writing for her, is another form of painting, only with words.
Exhibitions:
Los Angeles Valley College Art Gallery
Los Angeles, California
Group Show (juried) 1981
Santa Monica City College Art Gallery
Santa Monica, California
Group Show (juried) 1982
Shifflett Gallery
Los Angeles, California
Group Shows 1988 - 1989
The Underdog Gallery
Seattle, Washington
Group Shows 1993
La Maison Bleu Gallery
Seattle, Washington
Group Shows
1993 - 1994
Ron Segal Gallery
Seattle, Washington
Local Northwest Artist Show
Gift Gallery
Women Artists' Show
1994 - 1995
360 Fine Art
Seattle, Washington
1996 - 1997
Philadelphia International Institute Gallery (PII Gallery)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Featured Artist
July 1999
The Wave Gallery
Key West, Florida
Group Show
June 2000
Willows Gallery
Seattle, Washington
Featured Artist
July 2001
Centro Cultural Pablo de la Torrient Brau
International Digital Art Exhibition (Juried)
Havana, Cuba
June 2002
Circle of Sisters Expo 2002
Jacob Javits Center
New York City, NY
October 2002
Philadelphia International Art Expo
Liacouras Center, Temple University
Philadelphia, PA
November 2002
Ferrara Pro Art Association & Sekanina Contemporary Art Gallery
BODY, SIGN, SURFACE International Art Exhibition
Invitational Exhibition (Juried)
Castello Estense
Ferrara, Italy
April 2003
Sekanina Gallery
Ferrara, Italy
2003
Mari Hall started painting in her late 20s as a way to fill her time with something constructive and engaging. Painting became a gateway into an emotional and mental space that stretched into decades of intense learning, expansion, failure, success, dreaming that forever she would have tubes of oil paint, boxes of pencils, bottles of ink, reams of paper, rolls of canvas with endless amounts of time and energy to push all of each strand into some visual form that held pleasure for another besides herself. She is in her fourth decade of painting and hopes to mimic forever her desires in paint until she can no longer hold a brush.
Publications:
Cover Illustration, Novel
"Newt", by Ron Dakron
1992
Cover Illustration, Magazine
"Solstice"
The Nonprofit Quarterly
Summer, 2002
Exhibition Catalog
Arte Digital IV Salon de Arte Digital
Centro Cultural Pablo de la Torriente Brau
Junio-Julio 2002
"The Moon: Tarot"
Exhibition Catalog
Corpo Segno Superficie Rassegna
Internazionale d'Arte Contemporanea
Ferrara, Italy 2003
"Star Lovers"
Article Illustration
"Les Anges du Nord"
The Other Side Magazine
May-June 2004
Article Illustration
"The Call of Spirit"
The Other Side Magazine
July-August 2004
Documentary Film
"Erzulie"
Documentary, "Once There Was A Country: Haiti Revisited"
Krafty Longstocking Productions
Miami Beach, Florida
CD Cover
"Siddhartha"
Zarate Pollace Project
San Francisco, California
Release Date: Fall 2004
Holiday Greeting Card
"Wampanoag Princess"
United Church of Christ Holiday Greeting Card
Fall 2004
First Day Cover
Commissioned Painting
Unicover Corporation
"Standing Tall on a New Day"
USPS 1964 Civil Rights Act
Spring 2005
Magazine Cover
"Follow Your Heart"
Magnet Magazine
Autumn 2005 Issue
Article Illustration
"The Corn Goddess"
University of Denver Magazine
Summer 2007
Finalist, International Art Contest
"Aro Syren Vision"
Awarded by ArtaVita
December 2020
Finalist, International Art Contest
"Pacific Syren Harmony Wave""
Awarded by ArtaVita
March 2021
World Wide Art Books, Magazine #6
March 2021
"Pacific Syren Harmony Wave"
Books by Mari Hall (self-published)
"The Junenoon Effect" & "The Junenoon Effect: Troposphere"
Available through TheBookpatch.com
