PROFILE

Mary Coman was born in San Francisco in 1954 and grew up in Northern California. She loved to draw as a child and carried this love with her through college where she worked as an illustrator for the anatomy and botany departments at U.C. Davis while earning a B.S. degree in Biology. After graduation she studied illustration at the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California and at the Academy of Arts College in San Francisco. In 1981 she moved to San Diego and broadened her studies to include painting at Mesa College and printmaking at Galerie Cujas. Since 1985 she has focused her intent and her life on her own work.

“My work connects me with our past, with a time when rituals and traditions were passed down to each generation through the arts, helping us to find our place in the world. Today we have abandoned the past and the wisdom of those who have gone before us and we spend our lives frantically racing to achieve goals that have no spiritual meaning. My work connects me with the past and its wisdom, helping me deal with my own emotions and with very terrifying times.”

The artist who has most affected Mary’s work and her approach toward life is Auguste Rodin. “His sculptures and drawings convey both an intensity and gentleness that reflects his devotion to his own work and his passionate love for the people in his life. His work has the power to draw you in so deeply that you experience the joys and agonies of his figures as if they are your own.”

In her own work, Mary reveals everything she feels about the world around her – the beauty, the confusion, the horrors. “The figures and faces that move me to create are those that are slightly disturbing, frightening, that touch something within myself that is unclear.” For her, the rich blacks and pure whites of pen and ink come closest to capturing the mystery of human emotion, particularly the blacks. “There is great beauty in darkness, because it holds so much of life that is usually concealed.”

Asked what she can give to the world as an artist, she said, “I can give people an experience they might not have had, give them a glimpse into the heart of another person, and reveal to them a vulnerability. If my work affects someone deeply enough to compel them to create, then I have received an indescribable gift.”

Mary has exhibited her work widely and has had several one-person shows.