Education:
1994 MPS, Special Education (art therapy) Pratt Institute
1977 BA William Paterson University (Art)
Group Exhibits
2025 Woodstock School of Art Student Showcase Exhibition I
2010 Walt Whitman’s Calamus at 150, Hudson Guild Gallery, NYC
2009 Exposure, Ceres Gallery, NYC
Essential Music and Art Show, 531 W. 25th St., NYC
Stronghilos Influence, Art School at Old Church, Demarest, NJ
2008 Encryptions, MH Art NYC
Pro Arts Show, Hoboken City Hall
Pro Arts Members and Community Show, Canco Lofts, Jersey City
Cathedral Arts Festival, Grace Van Vorst, Jersey City
Women’s History Exhibit, City Hall, Jersey City
4th Annual Plein Air Competition, Easton, Maryland
2007 Universal Diversity, Gay Center, NYC
Earthscapes, Mary Benson Gallery, Jersey City
Community Show, Grace Van Vorst, Jersey City
ProArts Member Show, Canco Lofts, Jersey City
Faces of Grace, Grace Van Vorst, Jersey City
2006 Cathedral Arts Festival, Grace Van Vorst, Jersey City
2004 Friends on a Journey, The Open Center, NYC
New Jersey Small Works Show, OCCC, Demarest, NJ
2000 Graduate student painting exhibit, College of New Rochelle
1997 New Jersey Small Works Show, OCCC, Demarest, NJ
Alumni Juried Art Exhibition, William Paterson University
Solo Exhibit
2025 St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, Woodstock, through May 17.
Artist’s Statement
Nan Mahoney
I have lived in the Hudson Valley since 1975, presently in Shokan, NY.
I grew up in the St. Lawrence River valley and water is an important element in my work.
A key to my artistic development is courses I took with Carol Stronghilos at The Art School at Old Church in Demarest, NJ from around 2003-2009 and with her daughter, Meredith Lippman who encouraged me to move to Jersey City and the lively art scene there, including The Cathedral Arts Festivals At Grace Van Vorst Episcopal.
I attended SUNY at Potsdam for art with printmaking with Joseph Hildreth and painting with George D. Green and I finished my degree at William Paterson University in 1977 where I studied painting with John Day, a Josef Albers disciple.
Presently I am studying at the Woodstock School of Art with Melanie Delgado.
Quotes from painters:
“Do what makes it fun.” Carol Stronghilos
“In order to paint one has to go by the way one does not know. Art is like turning a corner; one never knows what is around the corner until one has made the turn.” Milton Avery
“I can’t live where I want to, I can’t go where I want to go, I can’t do what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.” Georgia O’Keeffe
The work is mixed media: oil, acrylic, watercolor, crayon, charcoal, pencil, clay, encaustics and collage elements, on canvas, board and paper.
Spontaneity, intuition and play are integral to my work. I want to convey movement through mark making and the evident vestiges of process. Texture is important to me and the feeling of air to breathe. Areas of white are just as important as areas of marks or color. Sometimes I rip or cut up old works and recombine the pieces to make a new whole as did Lee Krasner.
Joan Snyder has been an influence. I saw her “Women Make Lists” at Betty Cunningham Gallery in 2004 and continue to follow Snyder’s work online.
While not a slave to photography, I do use photos as reference and stimuli to my abstract work. Memory of place is also important. I am awed by the overwhelming mess of nature in me and around me and find contrasting order in the little particulars of flowers and leaves and beasts such as myself, all part of an interconnected whole vastly beyond me yet in me too. I still find winter as a welcome simplification and rest from the riot of life. I admire the Chinese traditional painters for their intimate connection to nature in themselves and their surroundings and their ability to eloquently simplify, to abstract, the mess around and in them into works of art.
I’m not a purist and refuse to be pigeon-holed. I’m extremely grateful for the evolution of painting that allows me the freedom to paint from my heart.
