Events

Opening reception Saturday, April 23, 6:00-8:00 p.m.
This reception will be held in conjunction with a reading by Jervey Tervalon at 7:00 p.m.

The Kalamazoo Book Arts Center is pleased to present the exhibition Memoir by painter, printmaker, writer, and book artist Mary Proenza. This exhibition includes work from two book projects. The first project is the collaborative Truth Comes Slowly; on view will be the four linoleum cut prints she created recently to illustrate a short story by Jervey Tervalon, printed at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center as a letterpress edition. Here, the idea of memoir applies to her process of illustrating. As both a reader and a visual artist creating in response to Truth Comes Slowly, she has focused not only on Tervalon’s specific written imagery, but also on experiences of her own, in order to fully register the story’s main sensations. For example, the print depicting San Francisco, where she lived for 15 years, is based on a painting she made from observation over many sessions in response to the sense of vast vistas that characterize the city’s beauty and impress its visitors, including the 10-year-old character in Tervalon’s story.

The second book project featured in the exhibition is Mary Proenza’s memoir in progress, told through a combination of literary and visual art. As Proenza notes, “The story of the memoir, set in several coastal California locations, traces the final decade of my mother's life, which were my years from age ten to twenty, as the family of six coped with her disabilities and immobilizing accidents related to polio, as well as with both parents' alcoholism. From the start, the story is also—and ultimately—about creativity as a way of feeling, thinking, and problem-solving. The story demonstrates that creativity can flourish not only in spite of, but even because of, obstacles.” On view will be paintings and works on paper related to the memoir, as well as excepts from the written story.

Mary Proenza’s artistic disciplines include painting, drawing, printmaking, book arts, and writing. She has received residency grants from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Jentel Foundation, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, Springboard for the Arts, New York Mills Cultural Center, and Dorland Mountain Arts Colony. Her written art reviews have been published in Art in America and The Brooklyn Rail, and her paintings appear on book covers from John Daniel & Co. and CD covers from CMH and Arhoolie. One of her current projects is a graphic memoir combining paintings, prints, drawings, and writing. The memoir project is supported by a 2020 Mednick Fellowship from the Virginia Foundation of Independent Colleges and by a 2022 Fellowship at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Recent exhibitions include "Cladogram," the 2nd Annual Juried International Biennial at Katonah Museum of Art; the 10th Annual All-Painting Competition at Maryland Federation of Art; the 2021 Torpedo Factory Artists Association Painting Competition; “One in a Year” at the Painting Center, NYC; and the 31st National Drawing & Print Competitive Exhibition at Notre Dame of Maryland University. In 2017, Mary Proenza was appointed Assistant Professor of Painting and Printmaking at Marymount University, Arlington, VA, where she is also Director of Barry Gallery. Previously, she taught in the City University of New York system, at Marymount Manhattan College, at New York Academy of Art, and at UC Santa Barbara. She completed a BA in literature at UCSB's College of Creative Studies, an MFA in painting at New York Studio School, and an MFA in creative writing at The New School.

This project was funded by an Arts Project grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.