Mary Petrine Livoni

Mary Livoni is a multi-media artist who lives and works in Chicago. She is currently working on a short film adaptation of the Stuart Dybek story "The Apprentice", a project partially funded by The Department of Cultural Affairs, Chicago, Illinois.
 

I began taking photographs of empty spaces and that led me towards creating symmetrical ones.
 

Symmetry slakes my craving for harmony; creating it is a current obsession.
 

Medium has always been fluid for me.
 

I like dream states; I draw from memories; that has been my constant as I have moved forward. What I choose to read has always been deeply inspirational to me, and I have made drawings, collages, and photographs that directly honor the works of poetry and prose that have sustained me as an artist.
 

Inspired by poets Louise Glück, Stuart Dybek, Li-Young Lee, Sylvia Plath, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Coover, e.e. cummings and our current Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith (just to name a few) I created a series of poetry broadsides; short video artworks that amplify a small section from the original work with layered metaphoric imagery and music.

Just as 19th century broadsides pasted on the city streets were meant to draw public interest towards reading a newly written poem or play, my short videos were created as markers in the vast universe of social media to point towards poetry.
 

Grateful to Christian Narkiewicz-Laine and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design for the opportunity to exhibit my work.
 

I would also like to thank The Poetry Foundation of Chicago, for creating the invaluable resource

www.poetryfoundation.org