MARIECLAIRE ST JOHN.
Profile
Marieclaire St John (b.1987 Milan, Italy) lives and works in New York City, primarily in acrylic paint and vinyl on canvas, focusing on the female form and experience as her central subject. Marieclaire graduated from the University of Southern California in 2009 with a B.A. in Communication and Fine Art and began her career in art and fashion in Los Angeles.
MSJ moved to New York in 2011 where she attended graduate school at Parsons School of Design, worked as a designer at Ralph Lauren and Marchesa and founded her acclaimed label, DRESSHIRT as an homage to her painter’s uniform, a man’s shirt. In 2017 Marieclaire was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree in the Art & Design category.
In her shoes, 2021
close your eyes and.
In Her Shoes , currently in work at MSJ’s New York studio, is a reaction to the famous Nike slogan “Just Do It” through a darker female lens. The series explores how this beacon of consumer empowerment is weaponized against women as a form of passive aggressive manipulation, eliminating all agency.
LABYRINTH, 2020
Labyrinth, 4/6
Labyrinth, is a collection of medium-sized works on canvas constructed from low viscosity, translucent layers of acrylic and vinyl. Painted in a continuous motion, the female form is at once concise and fragile; a representation of the complex experience that was 2020.
7.19.8.19.9.19, 2019
In A Dream
7.19.8.19.9.19 is a body of work in three parts, painted during and after the artist’s first pregnancy. Each segment appeals to a child’s vision development at different stages- first monochrome detail, then high contrast dimension, and finally, full spectrum depth. The breakdown expressing the duality of the child learning to see in a physical sense and mother learning to see herself anew.
SHE/HER, 2018
She/Her is a series of 25 miniature paintings inspired by Lee Krasner’s famous quote “you can have a tiny painting which is monumental in scale.” Being the wife of famed male artist Jackson Pollock, relegated to a small attic studio, this gendered remark is a poignant light on the female artist’s experience. This collection provides the viewer with parts of a woman and asks them to see the whole.
PRE/POST, 2017
Pre/Post focused on the opposing facets of femininity and the strength it finds in extremes. In paired pieces painted separately but understood in context, the artist used negative space and color to explore fluctuating emotion.
THIN LINE, 2016
Thin Line, MSJ’s first professional fine art collection, was inspired by her fashion marker illustrations. Here she began exploring texture and impulse in mid to larger scale abstract works on canvas.
What started as very aggressive, strong strokes, use of gels, sprays and industrial paints, softened and evolved into a distinctly different style, where a study of the female form began to emerge and an exploration of balance, strength and femininity within herself gave birth to the signature blood red edges that surround every one of her works.