PAINTING & PHOTOGRAPHY
VIRGINIA MALLON
I am an artist working in paint, photography, and occasionally mixed media. My work contemplates religious, historic, and mythological women, personal histories, and the psychological undercurrents of contemporary society. My early works reflect a classical approach to oil painting. After an Italian residency, I fell in love with the Arte Povera movement, and their use of raw, everyday materials. It was then I began to explore painting on other surfaces such as burlap and slate and a looser style in paint. I especially love using discarded slate from a former state-run (1885-1996) condemned psychiatric hospital. Now a hotspot for urbex explorers, it provides a wealth of unusual poignant pieces of history on which to work. The added symbolism using a piece of broken shelter for portraits seems appropriate for our times.
Much of my new work focuses on the long reaching effects of inter-generational trauma, women's rights and other political themes. Realizing the need for a new and better way to share my work I joined a small Denver arts journal as Art Editor. A year later the Fat Canary Journal was hatched. The goal was to celebrate and share the work of under-represented, emerging and contemporary artists in the United States and internationally - at no cost to the artist.
Another collaborative effort was established in 2019. As a child of immigrant grandparents, who fled Ireland due to the great hunger, I personally feel the impact of attacks on those seeking asylum and new immigrants in America. In response to the situation at the US/Mexico border during the Trump regime, I launched Artists for Social Justice 2020. A cadre of diverse and talented artists, Artists for Social Justice 2020 was a year-long, cross-country art exhibit that traveled into the heartland of America, united by the belief that art is and should be a catalyst for change.
