MARY TRUNK

Mary Trunk is a multi-media artist formerly based in Altadena, California, and now working in Los Angeles. Over more than three decades, she has created an eclectic body of work encompassing documentaries, dance films, experimental hybrids, site-specific installations, paintings, drawings, and photography. Her practice centers on a deep exploration of how memory and story inform one another, emphasizing the fluid, ever-shifting nature of recollection and narrative. These abstract paintings and drawings begin with familiar shapes and objects from daily life, transformed through the gesture and movement of the materials themselves. Layering, transparency, and framing open up spaces that invite viewers to bring their memories and recollections in response to the work, adding new narratives to how they remember and see the world they live in.

Her films span a wide range of subjects: the unraveling of her own family, the choices women face in balancing motherhood and creative life, the aging of dancers, meditation practices in prisons, architectural influences, and the complexities of the artistic process. Mary’s experimental videos, screendances, and visual art illuminate the subtleties of space, relationships, gesture, and movement. By reframing overlooked moments of everyday life, she transforms the ordinary into something layered and dramatic, revealing contradictions and dimensions that resonate with our own experiences.

Her work has been presented internationally at festivals, museums, and universities. She holds a BA in Theater Arts with a Dance Emphasis from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MFA in Film from the San Francisco Art Institute.

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Other websites:

Geography of Memory • Ma and Pa Films • Muscle Memory • Instagram