Mary Grigoriadis is regarded as a key figure in the Pattern and Decoration movement. Her work was included in the first major exhibition of the genre, “Pattern Painting”, at P.S. #1 in 1977, curated by John Perreault, Her early pieces, “secular icons,” were re-plete with a panoply of historical and cultural references and motifs, from Byzantine to American Indian to Islamic forms. They were grouped with the work of other cultural feminists who also celebrated women’s traditional crafts. Grigoriadis’ paintings are highly structured, richly colored, multilayered oils on raw linen. They were described by Hayden Herrera in Art in America as “…mixing unruly ornateness with compulsive con-trol” and …”as precious and ritualistic as medieval cloisonné enamel reliquaries, while daring to be as gaudy as Tiffany lamps…these paintings shake with life.” Grigoriadis describes her work as a paean to beauty, opulence and order. She continues to experiment with pattern in her highly structured architecturally inspired Portal Series and to celebrate the decorative without apology. A founding member of A.I.R., her work has been widely exhibited worldwide including at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Brooklyn Museum. It is represented in numerous public collections including the Virginia Museum of Fine Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Mary Grigoriadis was a member of A.I.R. from its inception in 1972 until 1990.
www.airgallery.org/index.
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Image courtesy of Mary Grigoriadis, the artist. (c) Mary Grigoriadis, 2005
