Ben Nicholson in my Heart Print

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 professional and artistic ties to New York's Wall Street global finance and banking culture which informed both her art and professional life. Maria Elena spent summers at Columbia University while working at the bank, continuing her art education, creating art and persuing her writing. She also spent time on Long Island coordinating and moving art for Louise Nevelson, Elaine DeKooning and masterworks including Rodin sculptures with a private art transport company. This exposure deepened and developed Maria Elena's understanding of fine art, and her own taste levels, creative process and preoccupation with iconic imagery and the immense power of commercial design and global branding. While living in London and working for the design firm Michael Peters Group, Maria Elena came to fully appreciate the American visual "strobe light" iconography present in global advertising, design and contemporary art. There she continued to write and make art. While her New York contemporaries turned to Punk, Graffiti and Street Art, Maria Elena continued to develop her sophisticated neo abstract-expressionist style, working on paper, canvas, and assemblage.