The Lady Face Project

My recent portrait project features 100 women who inspire me, captured in portraits and posted online.  Each of these women is unknown to me personally but is a figure whom I can reach quickly by searching online.  I am comforted by my virtual closeness to them.  To track this project and see lady faces as they are posted visit the Lady Face Project on tumblr.

studio filled with beautiful lady faces.  Brooklyn December, 2012

Margaret. Ink & Pencil on paper. 8"x8". 2012

Follow Lady-Faces on Tumblr!

Scrum Drawings Studio Update

Recent details from studio drawings using graphite, ink and colored pencil.  Rugby players in scrum formation.

  

detail, male athlete torso, 30" x 20"

detail, tackle drawing, graphite + ink on paper, 5'x3'

Scrum is used as a business strategy for people coming together and producing projects as a team.  I find the analogy to run deeper in terms of masculine energy, gender specificity and the push-and-pull ruthlessness of corporate culture.

And then there is this:

GoBrooklynArt in Greenpoint

Visited the GoBrooklynArt event this past weekend, and decided to explore artist studios in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  It was a beautifully humid day that broke free from an intense morning thunderstorm. Having a studio in Bushwick, I rarely venture through Greenpoint but discovered a lot of awesome spaces including the Fowler Arts Collective and a spread of live/work spaces.  Of course, a visit to Greenpoint would not be complete without a lunch break for vegan tacos at Papacitos.  

view from Fowler Arts Collective studios in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Highlights of the day included works by Douglas Goldberg, Alicia DeBrincat, James Bills & Suzanne Sattler.  

Douglas Goldberg

Microphone, 2010, alabaster, 14½" x 14" x 15"

Alicia DeBrincat

Ecstatic Grafting: Birdman's Flight Over the Water

oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

TONIGHT!! Summer Drawing Salon

TONIGHT!!! One Night Only Summer Drawing Salon

20 Jay Street, Ste M10 DUMBO Brooklyn, NY

6p-9pm

drawings by Mary Younkin 2012

a disorderly struggle: studio scrum

Definitions of scrum:

1. Sports

• A play in Rugby in which the two sets of forwards mass together around the ball and, with their heads down, struggle to gain possession of the ball.
• The mass or formation of players during such a play.

2. Chiefly British A disordered or confused situation involving a number of people.

drawing in progress, men in scrum formation (rugby)

ink and conte crayon drawing, men in scrum formation

Backlash Press & Opening Pics

Backlash Exhibition review on ARTE FUSE BLOG

My piece featured in the show:

On Behalf of Uterus, Ink, Conte & Pen on paper, 2012.

Click here to see photos of the opening event

Backlash at Soho20 Gallery

Backlash: On Women's Basic Rights and Freedoms
at Soho20 Gallery
July 17-August 11, 2012
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 19, 6-8pm Soho20 Gallery New York, NY.

For a full list of participating artists click here.

Sketchbook Project 2012: Play No Play

Check out my sketchbook project titled "Play No Play" at the link below Click here to view my digital sketchbook. Check out locations on its physical world tour.

3rd Ward Open Call: Please Vote!

Please support my work and Click Here to vote for my submission in the 3rd Ward Open Call!

3rd Ward is a great artist-supportive space in Brooklyn. Winners of the 3rd Ward Open call can receive cash prizes, a solo show, residencies and other prizes.

Full link to vote: http://maryyounkin.artistswanted.org/opencall2012w

February Studio Visit

"I think we've suffered from a series of mass delusions"

back to the drawing board, making tiny cuts

slicing and collaging ink drawings.

ink drawing sliced and collaged on brown paper 36" x 24"

work in progress, larger sheet of brown paper

detail of my power executives

more Workaholic, GIAF 2011

Some more images from the wall drawing installation titled Workaholic in building 12, section E of the Governor's Island Art Fair:

Workaholic: Governors Island Art fair Sept 2-25

This week kicked off a great event at Governors Island, the 4th Annual Governors Island Art Fair presented by 4Heads. Come visit the island on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11am-6pm through September 25th. Ferries run on the regular from Battery Park and Pier 6 in Brooklyn.

Workaholic, is a 3 story wall-drawing installation I created in building 12, section e.



Above is a sneak peak of the 3rd floor portion, from the 4thspan floor view. Fruit bat sculpture is by artist Debora Simon.

Workaholic August 2011

Welcome to the office; my office; any Manhattan building you may find yourself in every day. The same images of an elevator, office chair, desk, computer equipment, sit stark and familiar. Here they are transformed. They embody a dream-like form, appearing and dissolving into the architecture of the stairwell. I have an obsession with these ordinary objects which become all-consuming in the monotony of the day job. I also wish to transform them, take them out of their element, dissolving their expected natures. In this building on Governors Island they create a new identity, somewhere between a memory and the present moment, set within a more historic architecture. Painted pipes acknowledge the excitement and engagement of the artist within the present moment. Like the red emergency-color pipes often found in Manhattan office buildings, the pipes call attention to the function of the building and merge the intervention between the drawing and the physical space. The colors here are playful, youthful, reflecting both of the spirit of the artist and of the sea surrounding Governors Island. Here they are not emergencies, but rather fresh reminders of the present moment, the presence of this stairwell and of the artist’s intervention.

Hand Tools: animation experiment

Here is a recent experiment in animated drawings using After Effects:

one of a kind when you are mine

kissing, 4"x6", ink on index card

disconnected, 7"x7", ink on watercolor paper

6"x6", ink on watercolor paper

vertebrae in the park, 3"x5", ink and colored pencil on index card

from the sketchbook, colored pencil

office monsters

Here are some recent drawings from the studio. All are made with a combination of graphite, colored pencil and ink on 4"x6" index cards.

Tracing Utopia: My Street, My Office

Photos below of the recent drawing on the left and right side walls of my office space on Broadway in Manhattan. The dissolving, almost melting images represent the street in Brooklyn where I live. The outside of my neighborhood comes inside, inviting and invading into the sterile yellow office space. Images of urban life such as piles of trash awaiting pick up, street lights, safety cones are broken into liquid like shapes and lines. The automobile and motorcycle, both strong symbols of masculinity and achievement are shown equally as broken.

Post Dauphin Open Studios

Another Day at the Office

18th floor looking out onto NYC street. Times Square in the distance, a position of power, a birds-eye view of the hustle. The street is like a canyon with sirens and shouts and footsteps. I stare out at it all day long from within my yellow-walled computer palace, daydreaming.

painting in progress, 4'x3' oil on canvas

"Power Positions" paintings, 10"x 10", oil on wood panels

"Together in the Daylight (an office romance)", 12"x12", oil on wood panel

Art is a Gift Part 2: Pieces of Home

This project began a water color painting of my family home in California, which was then cut into 6 8"x10" pieces. Each piece was framed and wrapped in generic brown paper. Each of my four siblings, my parents, and myself opened a gift to reveal a piece to reside in each of our homes which spread from California, Colorado, to Alabama and New York City.

text portion:

You hold a piece of our collected memories

A sectioned piece of our unity.

The home is a place for dreams, daydreams, a symbol of future hope.

This childhood home holds many memories for each of us

But still it is a place that makes us connected,

That brings us together from different places and lives.

Hold onto this portion of the painting, hang it in your home,

And always know that each of us holds a unique piece

And without it the picture would not be whole.

cutting in studio

framed, all together

Art is a Gift

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
-- Pablo Picasso



The end of this year allowed for an engagement in art-making as gift-making. This year I wished to create some projects which I found to be both personally satisfying in terms of process and interpretation, but also resulted in giftable objects. The first of these involved creating 8 unique t-shirts for each of my nieces and nephews in a project titled Childhood Idols.

Each shirt was hand-drawn using fabric markers and features a cameo-style portrait of each child. The shirts, when worn, reiterate the uniqueness of each individual in both the portrait and the spirit in which it is displayed as wearable art. I believe the child-like experience of making art is one of the most true and often the most pleasurable modes to exist in. It is to appreciate the act of creation in the moment of creating, and to have a pride in the display of your creation. I was proud to share these objects with the most receptive art audience: children.

project images:

sister and brother cameos: Taylor & Noah

idols or rock stars


the best art audience/pint-sized performers
Orange County, CA. 2010