Mary Lovelace O'Neal
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Blue Whale a.k.a. #12 (from the Whales Fucking series), circa mid-1980s/early 1990s
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Tillie, Lassie, and Where Is the Don?, circa 1998
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A Purple Foot Whose Real Name Only Passion Knows #2, circa 1990s
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Anticipation, circa 1990s
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Miss Ruby Williams of Pine Bluff, Arkansas & Jackson, Mississippi, circa 1990s
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Pleasing a Hummingbird Is a Difficult Precarious Composition a.k.a. Looking through Their Curtains, circa 1990s
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Race Woman Series #7, circa 1990s
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TID - Flowers and Still Life, Who Expected It, circa 1990s
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TID - Obviously Red, circa 1990s
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Lost in the Deep Medina (From the Lost in the Medina Series), circa 1989-1990
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Brazilian Ladies in the Carnival, circa 1985
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Thelonious Searching Those Familiar Keys (from the Whales Fucking Series), circa 1980s
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Jabberwocky, 1976-1977
Mary Lovelace O’Neal (b. 1942, Jackson, MS) is known for her paintings that pair bold, monumental scale with layers of unexpected materials to explore deeply personal narratives and mythologies as well as broader themes of racism and social justice and contemporary critical debates. With roots in both Minimalist and Expressionist painting, her imagery has, over years and series, fluctuated between pure abstraction, narrative figuration, and the evocative spaces in between. Attending Columbia University’s MFA program in 1969, Mary developed her Lampblack series; creating paintings in which she applied layers of loose, powdered black pigment to large, unstretched and stretched canvases. She would then use a chalkboard eraser or her hands to disperse thin white lines over the velvety dimensions of black paint; taking inspiration from Barnett Newman and his “zip lines.” These lines meant to divide and simultaneously unite the composition, as Mary abandoned her expressionist style to instead engage in a dialogue around flatness, utilizing the color field method of soak straining. Effacing the concept of the individual mark in favor of large flat, strained and soaked areas of color, Mary’s repeated use of black pigment acted as a response to her contemporaries within the Black Arts movement and their critique of the lack of narrative social activism within her work. Mary however, describes the lampblack paintings as “as black as they could be,” alluding to their literal blackness and linking the abstraction as a way to “give voice to the intangible elements of the human spirit.” Her use of black pigment functions as an obvious symbolism for the unfiltered exploration of racial politics in the United States. Mary makes a further point of her intentions through the titles of her artworks, stating, “My paintings and their titles speak for me. They’re not attitudes of despair; they just simply state a factual existence that continues.” Her paintings, therefore, carry a sense of optimism despite their subject matter.
Throughout her career, Mary Lovelace O’Neal has blazed a trail for Black female abstract painters, struggling for inclusion and re-defining a movement, insisting on an aesthetic integration of experiences once defined as exclusive to the white male painters. Originally from Jackson, Mississippi, Mary holds a BFA from Howard University, attended a residency at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and graduated as the only African American student in Columbia’s MFA program in 1969. Her work is in collections including The Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, DeYoung Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago, Chile, and the Joyner/Giuffrida Collection. She is the 2022 recipient of the Mississippi Governor’s Arts Award Excellence in Visual Art, Lifetime Recognition Award by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and Anonymous was a Woman Award. Mary Lovelace O’Neal continues to live and work, splitting her time between Oakland California and Merida, Mexico.
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VIDEO: Discover the Most Fascinating Whitney Biennial 2024 Artists
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WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2024: EVEN BETTER THAN THE REAL THING
The Whitney Museum of Art 20 Mar - 11 Aug 2024Jenkins Johnson Gallery is thrilled to announce Mary Lovelace O’Neal’s participation in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, Even Better Than the Real Thing, opening March 20 at the Whitney Museum of...Read more -
New Work: Mary Lovelace O'Neal
The San Francisco Museum of Art 16 Mar - 20 Oct 2024Over her sixty-year practice, Mary Lovelace O’Neal has experimented with materials, color, and the discursive relationship between abstraction and figuration. Her paintings allude to a vast mythology of personal and...Read more
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Art Basel | Miami Beach
Miami, FL 6 - 10 Dec 2023Jenkins Johnson Gallery will participate in Art Basel Miami Beach, December 8 - 10, 2023 Booth B31. We will feature artists that explore social and political issues of the African Diaspora by connecting past and current moments: Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Wadsworth Jarrell, Gordon Parks, Ming Smith, Patrick Alston, Adrian Burrell, Dewey Crumper, Lisa Corinne Davis, Violet Fields, Alex Jackson, Blessing Ngobeni, Gregory Rick, Enrico Riley, and Raelis Vasquez. Jenkins Johnson Gallery will be participating in the Kabinett sector with a solo presentation of works on paper by Mary Lovelace O'Neal, featuring her iconic Lampblack (1970's) and Desert Women (1990's) series. In the Lampblack drawings she layers black charcoal and pastel, allowing slivers of negative space to invade the surface. These drawings speak to her affair with an "uncluttered minimalist viewpoint", invoking both a cultural and aesthetic sentiment. In Desert Women series, Lovelace O'Neal portrays garments worn in the Sahara Desert in Egypt and the Atacama Desert in Chile. She studied with master printmaker James Lesene Wells and at The Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. Lovelace O'Neal creates based on feeling and perception, forming moments of fleeting light. Her work is in museums including the Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Baltimore Museum, DeYoung Museum, and Brooklyn Museum. She has an upcoming solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in Spring 2024.Read more -
Art Basel
Basel, Switzerland 13 - 18 Jun 2023Jenkins Johnson Gallery is excited to announce its participation in the 2023 edition of Art Basel. Our booth will be located at C11, the fair...Read more -
Frieze NY
New York, NY 17 - 21 May 2023Jenkins Johnson Gallery is excited to announce our participation in the 2023 edition of Frieze New York taking place at The Shed, Booth B19. Public...Read more
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Art Basel | Miami Beach
Miami, FL 6 - 10 Dec 2023Jenkins Johnson Gallery will participate in Art Basel Miami Beach, December 8 - 10, 2023 Booth B31. We will feature artists that explore social and political issues of the African Diaspora by connecting past and current moments: Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Wadsworth Jarrell, Gordon Parks, Ming Smith, Patrick Alston, Adrian Burrell, Dewey Crumper, Lisa Corinne Davis, Violet Fields, Alex Jackson, Blessing Ngobeni, Gregory Rick, Enrico Riley, and Raelis Vasquez. Jenkins Johnson Gallery will be participating in the Kabinett sector with a solo presentation of works on paper by Mary Lovelace O'Neal, featuring her iconic Lampblack (1970's) and Desert Women (1990's) series. In the Lampblack drawings she layers black charcoal and pastel, allowing slivers of negative space to invade the surface. These drawings speak to her affair with an "uncluttered minimalist viewpoint", invoking both a cultural and aesthetic sentiment. In Desert Women series, Lovelace O'Neal portrays garments worn in the Sahara Desert in Egypt and the Atacama Desert in Chile. She studied with master printmaker James Lesene Wells and at The Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. Lovelace O'Neal creates based on feeling and perception, forming moments of fleeting light. Her work is in museums including the Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Baltimore Museum, DeYoung Museum, and Brooklyn Museum. She has an upcoming solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in Spring 2024.Read more -
Art Basel
Basel, Switzerland 13 - 18 Jun 2023Jenkins Johnson Gallery is excited to announce its participation in the 2023 edition of Art Basel. Our booth will be located at C11, the fair...Read more -
Frieze NY
New York, NY 17 - 21 May 2023Jenkins Johnson Gallery is excited to announce our participation in the 2023 edition of Frieze New York taking place at The Shed, Booth B19. Public...Read more