Ms. Nicole Mauro

Nicole Mauro is a senior majoring in painting. She also focuses on printmaking. She incorporates paper materials in her paintings and uses pale or muted colors. She draws inspiration from organic processes. She is planning her career as a professional painter in an art gallery.

Louis: What materials do you use in your paintings and printmaking?

Mauro: Well, in painting i use oil paints. But recently, I have been incorporating found papers such as newspapers, sandpaper, and whatever I can get my hands on. It's almost like manipulating texture with texture.

Especially since most of the work I showed you is on canvas, it's like paint and texture on top of a textured canvas. In terms of printmaking i mostly print on paper but i have also really enjoyed printing on transparency.

Louis: So do you want texture as a focal point in your paintings versus a flat image?

Mauro: Maybe not as a focal point, but more like a vehicle to describe something. Sometimes in a series, I'll end up working purely in collage.

Louis: How do you describe your style? Do you convey a specific message/emotion in your work?

Mauro: I work with what attracts me. Google Earth images are important to me and through my paintings I almost try to discover why. I also like to work with this idea that anyone with a computer can use google earth to see a place. It's like seeing without actually seeing.

Also, I have this weird affinity for certain shapes such as rust patterns and pulled up tar. So I try to connect the geometric man made boundaries of google earth images with organic naturally occurring patterns.

Louis: Do you look at other sources of inspiration/relation to your work?

Mauro: I look at a lot of artists, which is something I was sort of naive about before encountering the really smart faculty. I look at Lisa Sanditz, Peter Halley, and Paula Scher.

Louis: Would you incorporate more mixed media in your paintings? Even step out of using canvas and paint on objects?

Mauro: That's something I think about a lot. I mean there's something to be said about making the decision to paint on canvas and I don't think I actually make that decision.

I would like to work on a different surface such as glass or wood.

Louis: May I ask, why do you have an affinity to the natural world more so than the modern creations and digital media?

Mauro: Digital media is really terrifying to me! (haha!) But it's not so much nature it's just i like what organic processes produce. Especially in comparison to what we, people, produce.

Louis: What makes organic more intriguing?

Mauro: I guess maybe it's more relatable to me. Spill spots, drips, rust stains...they just "look" nice to me.

Louis: Did you know you wanted to do painting since young? Or when you became an undergrad?

Mauro: No I didn't even want to go to art school when it was like "college search" time. I had this idea of going to some really small school and then I applied to Mason Gross for the hell of it, got in and realized I really wanted to be working in art.

Painting seemed like a default choice in retrospect. At one point I got so bitter about painting and all I wanted to do was print. But now I recognize that it doesn't have to be one or the other.

Louis: Yes, after a while, they all seem to connect. Do you have experience in other arts?

Mauro: I've taken classes in figure drawing and the basic artmaking ones, but besides painting classes I've done silkscreen, litho, intaglio, letter-press, bookmaking, paper-making.

Louis: Do you think these skills influence your painting or vice-versa?

Mauro: Oh yeah! Printmaking allows me

to sort of breakdown a painting, even if it doesn't exist. It makes you think differently, it's easy for all of us students to get stuck in rut.

Louis: I've noticed you use pale/muted colors. Is this preference or choice?

Mauro: Yeah it's a preference, which is something i didn't recognize until my professor pointed it out. I think I am staying true to the colors of these computer images but really it's a matter of my taste. I muddy everything.

Louis: Mud is always good. :) What do you think of critiquing? Is it different than print? Do you benefit from it?

Mauro: Most of the time, if not all, you're painting critiques are with all painters.

With the size of the printmaking program you get a more diverse group of people looking at work which can be nice but can also be terribly frustrating because you know in a painting class it might go differently, whether good or bad.

I benefit MAJOR from crits! They are so important!

Louis: Do you think you learn from crits that you give to your peers?

Mauro: Yeah, I mean speaking aloud about someone else's work can be like speaking to yourself. You notice what you notice.

Louis: Do you have a goal you wish to achieve as an artist?

Mauro: It would be really nice to be working as an artist.

Louis: Gallery-wise or a specific occupation? Freelance?

Mauro: I mean the ultimate would be working and showing in a gallery and selling!

Louis: Any ideas for Thesis? Possibly use different media?

Mauro: I should have had an answer prepared because I knew it was coming!

I try to not let myself think about the end result and just work in the moment and see where it takes me

If thesis were tomorrow I would want to be showing my paintings but hopefully with more printmaking involved.

Louis: Thank you for your time!