About

Mariana Rockwell (born 1993) is an interdisciplinary artist from Chicago IL, USA. She works primarily in painting and sculpture and occasionally in installation and performance. Her work is an exploration of our relationship between 'Place' and 'The Subconscious' both within the context of her home (The American Midwest) and beyond. This imagery of tall weeds is heavily informed by our ancient memories of a landscape we all come from, which is buried deep in the foundation of our psyches. Like the function of memory recall itself, the painting process that is used to create this work is one of painting many layers of cluttered weeds and incessant mark making with then washes of erasure until there is a level of fog and obscurity. This then creates a space that exists between the familiar and the unknown. This work is an invitation to look inward and is a dissection of where we look for 'value' and 'sacredness' in a capitalist landscape, as well as a grappling with the loss of both. Equally, this work is a longing to return to where we come from and a search for the sublime in the mundane. Mariana received a bachelor's of fine arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015, and since then has exhibited and curated work both in Chicago and abroad.