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Mary Jane Cross

Mary Jane Cross

American painter, (1951-)

— ArtYouhua—

Mary Jane CrossMary Jane Cross (1951-) is an American 21st century realist artist. She lives in Newport, New Hampshire with her husband Mark Cross.

Mary Jane's journey as an artist began in earnest at the age of 8, with a desire to create beautiful things. She studied at the Worcester Art Museum School in Worcester, Massachusetts from 1970-1973, beginning her voracious appetite for museums, galleries, biography, painting, and telling stories with paintings.

Mary Jane found that the expressionism of the 70s did not satisfy her need for academic skills. So, soon after graduation, she developed a curriculum for herself and several students modeled after the French Academic painters and the Pre-Raphaelites. Studying how other artists were trained gave her the courage to find her own voice.

She attended workshops under Daniel Green and then studied atmospheric color manipulation for 15 years under Fran Hoyt, a student of Vincent Dumond at the Art Students League. Gerome, Bouguereau, Lefebvre, the Pre-Raphaelites, Jules Bastien-Lepage, Mary Cassatt, Lord Leighton left their romantic and gorgeous themes, models and superb technical ability to tell stories in a fascinating way, and these "inspirations" continue to attract and reflect her work.

Mary's work personifies beauty on a level of emotion and intimate respect, with women as the main subject. The spirit and soul of the models are lovingly cared for under her fingers. This is literal, as the artist suffers from severe tremors and cannot use a brush, so she can only paint with her fingers. Rather than ending her career, the artist persevered to create a documentary, which took 18 months to make.

Mary Jane at her best combines poetry with the grace of her treatment of characters that a Pre-Raphaelite painter could muster in telling a story. Her wish to paint half of her personal vision in three lifetimes leads her to recognize the eternity of her Creator as the most welcome possibility.

The woman in prayer, the tranquil scene, and the quiet stillness perhaps all come from the rest she was physically denied. Clearly, her inner peace has become a comforting theme that is powerful as a visual reprieve in our busy culture.

Mary Jane said of her work, "Always learning, never reaching, leaving the contemplative painter in me always eager to paint the next tender piece... and then, by God's grace, the next."

source:Oil Painting World (ID: ArtYouhua), please indicate the source when reprinting.

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