Mary Mattingly

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Born in 1978 in Rockville, Connecticut, Mary Mattingly is an artist living and working in New York. She received her BFA degree from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon, and is also the recipient of a Yale School of Art Fellowship. Her work explores the themes of home, travel, cartography, and humans' relationships with each other, with machines, with corporate and political entities. She is known for creating photographs depicting futuristic and obscure lands, for creating wearable art "wearable homes", and her ecological installations including the "Waterpod."

"In the design of the Wearable Home, I examine the cohesive threads of cultures’ and groups’ clothing throughout the world; from Inuit cultures to saris in India, Muslim, Hindu, Zen Buddhist garments, American Gap, Banana Republic, the Khaki Overcoat, muslin design prototypes, construction uniforms, kimonos, Dockers, safari camouflage, military uniforms, the blandification and brandification of garments spanning cultures worldwide to make one, general look de-emphasizing self and re-emphasizing everything else (collaboration, ideas, survival, modularity, etc.). I think this, over time, is a creative way to think about the outcome of mega-mergers and the illusion of choice, technology and the idea of utopia, as well as wiki-run systems. The result, then, may be that one wearer would be indistinguishable from the other, thus greatly alleviating the threat of the end of privacy. Our distinguishing features would be greatly masked in this context to the naked eye, however the pervasiveness and scrutiny of high-powered networks would still catalog our movements and whereabouts."

In September 2006, the artist's piece titled "The New Mobility of Home" was the cover image of the International Center of Photography's Triennial titled "Ecotopia". In December 2006, she released a multimedia opera at White Box in New York titled "Fore Cast." "Fore Cast" was coined an environmental disaster opera and was an art installation with music and performances depicting WWIV after Albert Einstein's quote, "I don't know what WWIII will be fought with, but I know WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones." The gallery was filled with water, sand, and tree stumps with a 360° circular projection that covered the space.

Disjecta
White Box
Robert Mann Gallery
International Center of Photography
Artcritical.com
Mary Mattingly