Art of Warning

Mary Ciani

Mary Ciani, an artist living and working in Texas, changed her art radically a decade ago when the world changed around her, as nearby Bastrop burned and Harvey swirled over a hot Gulf and slammed into Houston. She turned her art from lives lived in time, to a deeper, broader view: our thoughtless destruction of our one home. Ciani was called to an Art of Warning (and now to an Art of Witness too as what we feared is now here): Flood Drawings, Deluge Paintings, and Postcards from the Future. She drew flooding waters as glaciers melted; then painted deluge of black oil and lipstick-red blood – cause and effect – in a blue world under attack; and finally 200 small, elegant, black and red drawings, one a day, mailed back to us as warnings from the future. Ciani enters an active arena of artists making urgent images that cut through the noise of popular culture. From her studio she looks out to a view of doves and cardinals, a pond and bamboo forest – but sees only Deluge.

Deluge, Black Oil, Snowmelt, Shattering Rock, Polyptych, four 4’ x 3’ canvases, 4’ x 12’, Golden paints, 2020-2024