Mary Offermann

Mary Offermann divides her time between her Santa Cruz studio and a tiny village in the South of France, where she paints mountains, trees and village scenes in a rich and joyful display of pastels. Her paintings resonate with color and a love of life.

A recurring subject in her work is the tree, with its branches reaching for the sky and its roots plunged deep into the soil. For Offermann, a mother of three and a former midwife, the tree symbolizes the union of heaven and earth. Its endurance, as it passes through the seasons, eternally changing, imbues Offermann’s work with recurrent themes of survival and transformation.

The Big Sur Mountains and coastline represent a meeting of earth and water and serve as an inspiration and challenge for a new and evolving body of her work. Always, Offermann seeks to capture the energy of the land through the direct and colorful medium of pastels.

Educated at the University of California-Davis in the early 1960’s, Offermann has lived in San Francisco, Chicago, New England, New York, Philadelphia, and East Africa. In 1971 she began her exploration of visual expression with black and white relief prints.

She worked in pastels and mixed media for the past twelve years. Color is now at the heart of all her work.