Marianne Connolly is an artist and writer living in western Massachusetts. Her visual work involves collage, photography and installation art. She also writes stories about magic, disco and urban dragons.
FROM PIECING, CONNECTING, RE-CALLING, 2023
Marianne Connolly explores storytelling, narrative, and the connections between language and image in her visual art of collage and mixed-media work and in her written work in fantasy fiction. "Rapunzel’s Diary (Revised)," for example, is a mixed-media work pairing an iconic Olivetti Valentine typewriter with a 20-foot scroll of typed narrative. Like the fairy-tale character of Rapunzel, trapped in a high tower and pouring her long hair out the window to connect with the world (and her fairy-tale prince), the typewriter is suspended on the wall above us and a hand-typed story flows down to the floor, from the “window” of an elegantly designed placket.
Also revealing the artist’s long-term interest in narrative, "Ophelia's Dive" is a hand-cut-and-pasted collage imaging an alternative turn in the story of Ophelia, from the Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet. The artwork revels in aspects of collage technique, with the convincing incongruity of Ophelia’s feathery boa conjured from meticulously-snipped photographs of octopus eggs.