Mary Jo Bole, "Family Portraits, Now and Then"

Mary Jo Bole

Family Portraits, Now and Then

9 color screenprint on Coventry Rag

Price range: $600 through $1,260

Family Portraits Now and Then showcases Bole’s pursuit of the poignant and the irreverent. Life and decay are juxtaposed by the presence of floating purple blooms surrounding flowers that have dried-up.

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Year
2014
Edition of
50
Dimensions
28 x 40 inches
Authentication

Signed, numbered, dated, and titled by the artist. All Haystack editions come with a Certificate of Authenticity.

:Family portraits, then and now: we’re all so fresh-faced in the old pictures. Those images seem to float away as we grow older and more weathered.”

– Mary Jo Bole

About the Artwork

Family Portraits Now and Then showcases Bole’s pursuit of the poignant and the irreverent. Life and decay are juxtaposed by the presence of floating purple blooms surrounding flowers that have dried-up. Themes of aging, decoration, and memory are all explored here.

The edition was printed in collaboration with the artist and Forth Estate at Axelle Editions. Due to the size of this particular print, this work was printed utilizing a screen that once belonged to Andy Warhol. Each edition was created by silkscreen printing (also known as serigraphy). This method requires stenciling techniques wherein ink is pressed onto paper through deliberately exposed areas of a mesh screen one color at a time.

Curator's Note

Mary Jo Bole makes work across a wide range of media. The connecting thread for Bole’s work is a sense of place. The artist was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, into a family with a rich history. The experience Bole had growing up was one of dusty heirlooms from generations past with a Victorian era theme.

These relics influenced Bole’s aesthetic, which we can see in Family Portraits. By the time Bole arrived, the Victorian era was all but passed, and the decay of the once great city of Cleveland was a reality. In this screenprint, we see a grand decorative gold motif the likes of which we might see on the ceiling of a great concert hall. Look closely, however, and you will see the curling of barbed wire around the purple elements in each corner. “Golden Age” thinking rarely leaves a trail of facts discrediting itself.  

About the Artist

Mary Jo Bole (b.1956, Cleveland, OH) makes art across media, including geologic materials, printmaking, hand-drawn maps, artist-books and installations. Her resources include gallows humor, memento mori, Victorian left-over culture, crumbling post-industrial Cleveland, curious objects and cemeteries, a dose of punk, the gilded age, and Lake Erie. 

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