Yearbook photo

Yearbook name: Mary Elizabeth Person

Mary’s Web site: http://www.maryhrbacek.com

A recent interview with Mary:

Short Professional Bio 2016
Hrbacek recently (2015)  received the Carole A. Feuerman Sculpture Foundation, ESKFF Foundation, MANA Contemporary, and The Helis Foundation financial grant award for her artworks exhibited in “Mixing Medias” at MANA Contemporary.  She also received the Juror’s Prize from director Ann Philbin of  The Drawing Center, at the “The American Drawing Biennial VI,” Muscarelle Museum (College of William and Mary), VA. This year she participated in “Whispers” at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, a show that will travel to The State Museum of Contemporary Art of Thessalonica in 2017.  Hrbacek also participated in the 2016 Mykonos Biennial. Since 2009 she has had four solo exhibitions at CREON in New York City.

Personal note
I have been married to Karel Hrbacek, a Czech mathematician from Prague for thirty-two years.  He is a retired professor of mathematics from The City College of New York, who is an avid rock climber and world traveler.  This summer after my show comes down on May 28th, we are going to tour the Cycladic Islands of Greece by ferries.  That is my story for now.  There are plenty of challenges here in the NYC art world, but I am facing them I hope squarely.

My GCM era (and before)
When I was ten years old, my father was transferred from D.C. to Stockholm Sweden.  He worked at the American Embassy there.  When I was thirteen I had to go to Swedish school, as there was no English speaking school available.  I had to learn a very difficult language, with an indecipherable script, to be used at the Gymnasium where I was one of two American students.  I was only there a year, then we moved back to VA.  I was very foreign, but when I went to Falls Church HS, entering late in October, I was accepted there.  I was voted best dress my freshman year,my picture was published in the school newspaper, and I was accepted in a nice sorority.  I wore a lot of black mascara, white lipstick and mini-skirts, very Swedish style.

My sophomore year my father moved again, to the Marshall district, so that we could expand from our original starter home.  (Of course in Europe we had a beautiful villa paid for by the government.) I was confused and disoriented by all the three high schools I had to adjust to. I was never accepted at Marshall.  Every day for three years I would go to school, where before home room all the cliques would congregate.  No one would speak to me; it was the loneliest time of my life.  Luckily, I made friends at George Mason, Mclean HS and even at O’Connell.  Don’t ask me how I did this, but I am fairly outgoing.  When I went to the last reunion, nothing had changed.  I was not accepted then and I do not know why, and I wasn’t welcomed in any way when I went back.  I have become an International Art Critic with AICA/USA and an International artist.  I am having a painting show in the Chelsea art district, NYC that opens this May.  Unfortunately, my time at Marshall was one of the worst times of my life.  If you have any insights about why I was not accepted at Marshall (too different?) I would be very glad to hear them, as I would like to illuminate my past.

Photos: