"Mayo is artist, whose humor is perhaps, a tad eccentric,in a good way. Her composition is interestingly off center, while hidden elements creep up and surprise. Beetles and bugs, and half human like heads bare their teeth.
Text is almost always included in her artworks, with words like “no mind games”,cluing in the viewer on the mood and tone of the piece.
Although the subject matter is at times despondent, i.e. half human, half-animal like creatures caught up in their own quagmires, the color and naive illustration style offers hope that perhaps, in the bigger picture, things are not as bleak as they may seem.
Mayo adores working with traditional tools such as the brush,pencil and paint, savoring her favorite moment when she thins down the watercolors on paper.
She does almost everything by hand, including making her own vintage paper. Finally though, she uses a Wacom pad for collaging and the finish.
Her favorite characters while she was young, were not cartoons, but live animals. Spending time catching frogs,climbing trees to go get sweet cherries and playing with cats and dogs, were things she loved immensely.
Mayo says that her childhood playmates had an intense influence on her, and is today, still visible in her art.
Mayo believes, that the tree major questions that we seek answers to in life,'Where do I come from? Where am I? Where am I going?”, causes us to create masks.
For her, these masks are like the characters we create in order to express emotion. Mayo goes on to say that, in her view, “rich” civilization has lost this need to find our true selves beneath the mask of “others” characters.
She says “ It is different in places where the world really isn't a fairy tale,where getting food is equally essential to breathing air. In these places, fairy tale is still about the battle between good and evil, in the CLEANEST FORM!”
It is perhaps this consciousness that informs her art, for we see the characters in sometimes lost, or overwhelmed in strange gardens and landscapes,seeking to emerge from the dark world of the chrysalis into the light."
Review from book "The Garden of Eye Candy"
by Bigbros Workshop & Basheer Graphic
BOOKS & ILLUSTRATIONS
2004 Illustrations for "What Gnu Knew"- Brown Publishing Network/Macmillan
2004 Illustrations for"The Dream Of Paraquaria" Nasza Ksiegarnia Publishing
2004 Illustrations for educational book publishers Little Red Riding Hood, for Harcourt School Publishing
2005 Illustrations for"Alice in Wonderland " Nasza Ksiegarnia Publishing
2005 Illustrations“Through The Looking Glass" Nasza Ksiegarnia Publishing
2005 Illustrations for "Walker No-Fly" Joanna Kulmowa, Nasza Ksiegarnia Publishing
2006 Illustrations for "Secret diary of Tywonka” Ezop Publishing
2007 Illustrations for "Hanukkah Moon" Deborah da Costa Kar-Ben Publishing
2010 Illustrations for educational book publishers How the Milky Way Came to Be, for Macmillan
2012 Illustrations for "Cats Comes Too" and " Dog Comes Too" by Hazel Hutchins for Annick Press
In 2009 I adopted artistic name Mayo and I set up a website www.mayo-nmg.com where I present my artistic works
2011 I created a pattern collection "Stranger in my Home" and set up online shop "Stranger In My Home "
AWARDS
“Hanukkah Moon” has been recognized as a 2008 Notable Book for Younger Readers by The Sydney Taylor Book Awards
EXHIBITIONS
Honeytrap - group show in Strychnin Gallery Berlin
KunStart 2009- art show in Bolzano, Italy
7 Year itch -anniversary group show Strychnin Gallery
PUBLICATIONS
KunStart 2009- art show in Bolzano, Italy
7 Year itch -anniversary group show Strychnin Gallery
PUBLICATIONS
"The Garden Of Eye Candy" Book - great collections of artists by
Bigbrosworkshop & Basheer Graphic Books
"The Age of European Drawing" - special edition My DPI Magazine
My DPI Magazine – interview
Oh Really Magazine
Carpaccio Magazine
Area Zinc Magazine
Lieblingsempire Calendar 2009
Bigbrosworkshop & Basheer Graphic Books
"The Age of European Drawing" - special edition My DPI Magazine
My DPI Magazine – interview
Oh Really Magazine
Carpaccio Magazine
Area Zinc Magazine
Lieblingsempire Calendar 2009
