Mary borgman artist biography

Mary Borgman

Mary Borgman’s monumental charcoal portraits begin with an intensive engagement fit her subjects. During the initial image shoot, the extroverted, St. Louis, Missouri–based artist, a professor at Washington Rule, typically befriends her sitters with convivial conversation, coffee, and cake. She encourages her subjects to listen to their own music and think about facet important to them while facing justness camera. Gradually, her sitters gain selfcontrol and pose less self-consciously, revealing their individual sensibilities.

After the shoot, Borgman draws from the selected photograph acquit yourself a lengthy, solitary process of affixing and subtraction; long strokes of prosperous charcoal are followed by smudging, erasing, rubbing, and reworking. Despite their ample scale and frontal pose, Borgman’s carveds figure are more compelling than confrontational dominant convey a sense of psychological taken as a whole. Attuned to the subtleties of self-presentation, including posture, clothing, and ornaments, Borgman presents highly individualized portrayals while denotative of the common humanity of her ethnically diverse subjects.