Introducing Self-Directed Artist in Residence Marianne McCraney July 2018

Marianne McCraney is a professional artist and art teacher with more than 20 years of experience in the design, creation and exploration of painting, drawing and multi media. She uses traditional materials such as water color, oil paint and graphite. Lines and texture give her works their own story and history that mirrors that of people and places. The spare and direct way that she represents things is an attempt to step out of the way and let the images speak for themselves. Current Project "For the Caetani Cultural Center Residency I would like to continue a series of paintingsof elders that I have begun. As I am also interested in structures, I would like to explore the area, and draw on site, both for the immediate experience and as reference for future paintings.""I am interested in unnoticed people and places. A person’s life story is contained in her body; time causes it to bend and stretch, like a tree after years in wind and weather. A figure inhabits the space around it in ways that adds to the narrative. People whose bodies show the weathering of a life project a hidden beauty that I am drawn to. Elders tend to blend into the background of their environment. I strive to shed light on the invisible. Similarly, lonely and abandoned structures speak to me of their histories, and the memories they contain. I am compelled by tension between what the structure once was and how it is now. As with people, older structures settle and shift to become one with their surroundings"Check out her website HERE