Description
We are thrilled to announce a visit to the studio of Mary Evans, the artist representing the UK in Women to Watch 2020: Paper Routes at NMWA opening in October 2020. Join us to hear Evans’ inspiration, the process behind her work, and see parts of the installation being planned for Washington in process.
The bold and graphic life-sized silhouettes by Evans recall tropes and themes of Western art to question ideas around representation, cultural change, and globalization. Using Kraft paper as her main material, Evans’ evocative site-specific installations reflect on the tragic and brutal history of Africa, its people, and its diaspora. She likens her processes of cutting and pasting to the dislocation and assimilation experienced of people who are transplanted from one location to another with different cultural and social influences The very disposability of the Kraft paper itself also carries meaning for Evans; she likens it to the way in which black bodies have historically been used and discarded but also finds similarities in its resilience and strength.
Evans studied painting at GLOSCAT and received her MFA from Goldsmiths College. She completed her postgraduate study at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Evans has been a recipient of the Arts and Literary Arts Residency at the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy (2014); a research residency at Du Bois Centre Accra, Ghana (2013); and the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Washington D.C. (2010). Her exhibitions include Women to Watch UK-Paper Work, Sotheby’s, London (2019); EVA – Ireland’s Biennial (2016); Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art, Blaffer Art Museum, Houston TX (2013); Cut and Paste, Tiwani Contemporary, London (2012); and Meditations, Baltimore Museum of Art (2008). Evans is represented by Tiwani Contemporary, London.
Image: Mary Evans at Paperwork 2019
