Maria Elena Ferran

Maria Elena Ferran, an artist and writer was born in Massachusetts in 1962, and raised in Northport, Long Island. She is considered one of New York's early 80's artists; studying painting, photography and design at Sweet Briar College and New York's School of Visual Arts where she entered the New York art scene on the heels of Keith Haring and Jean-Michael Basquiat's brute contemporary / abstract graffiti style explosion.

Her early works on paper and canvas demonstrate clear influences of Warhol, Nicholson, Braque, Picasso, Matisse and Van Gogh. Sweet Briar art professor Loren Oliver, a student of Mark Rothko while at Tulane University likened her colorful Virginia landscapes to those of Oscar Kokoshka and Richard Diebenkorn.

While attending art school in New York Maria Elena studied drawing under Andy Gerndt, and painting under Janice Provisor, Steve Smulka and Frank Roth.

She personally showed her first New York canvases in a personal conference with Andy Warhol when she was 19 and was photographed with Mr. Warhol by his Velvet Underground and Factory documentary photographer Gerard Malanga.

While in New York she also worked for global investment bank Morgan Stanley & Company where she developed deep profession...

Sweet Briar College
Liberal Arts
1980

The School of Visual Arts, New York
Foundation in Painting
1982

University of the State of New York
Bachelor of Science in Liberal Studies
with concentration in Art, Economics and Philosophy
1994

2013

Solo Exhibit
THE WHOLE SHEBANG! Recent Paintings, Photographs & Works on Paper
Bang & Olufsen
Charlotte, NC

National Juried Art Competition (Group)
Chautauqua: Crossroads
Eastern Kentuck University
Richmond, Kentucky