Mari Giddings studied painting with Meryl Mahaffey and photography with Allen Dutton before earning her BFA under master printers Dan Britten and Wayne Kimball in Arizona State University's world-respected printmaking program. After graduation, she served three years as chief assistant to painter-printmaker Robert A. DeVoe, who--in antidote to her years of formal academic training-- taught her that "a painting could be about pleasure."

As for her distinctive style, the multiple transparent layers, the depth and the textures that mark all of Giddings' work, she says, with some surprise: "I seem to have become primarily a colorist in the tradition of Matisse, Bonnard, Rothko and Turner. Obviously, I enjoy working in several formal genres, but, for me, color and surface seem to take over form. That's why representational art and abstraction are so much the same thing to me. To not do one or the other is like deciding to walk using only one foot. I take a very 19th Century pride in the mastery of my craft--in being able to work in different ways with a high level of technical skill, each replenishing the other. Because that's what art is, finally: a deliciously suspended moment made of pure energy--a collision of heart and mind and hands. An artist must continually master physical and technical skills in order to keep the spirit moving."

Mari's art can be found in numerous private and corporate collections, including Arizona State University Permanent Collections, America West Airlines Corporate Collection, GTE Sylvania Corporate Collection, Target Corporate Headquarters and many more. She particularly enjoys making large canvases for public spaces, as she has done for the lobby of the Disney Hotel in Anaheim and dozens of others.

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