Mary Ellen Croteau

Born in 1950 in Chicago, Mary Ellen Croteau received a BFA in sculpture from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1990 and an MFA from Rutgers University/Mason Gross School of the Arts in 1998. Her art has been exhibited extensively in museums and galleries in the U.S. as well as Europe, Korea, and Colombia, and has won numerous awards. It has been reviewed in the New York Times, the Village Voice, Dialogue Magazine and The Cleveland Plain Dealer among others. Her work has appeared on the cover of Artpaper and On The Issues magazine, and has been reproduced in Ms. and other publications. Croteau has lectured nationally and internationally, including the Academia de Belle Arte in Florence, Italy; The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; and Seoul Women’s University in Korea. In addition, she has organized, curated and/or juried numerous exhibitions, including “Attitudes: Good Girls/Bad Women” for The Living Arts Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland and most recently, “Are We There Yet? 40 Years of Feminist Art” at ARC Gallery. Croteau is a member of SisterSerpents, a Chicago-based feminist art collective, whose exhibitions and poster art have been extensively reviewed in local and national publications including PRINT and the AIGA Journal. SisterSerpent posters are in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and were exhibited in their 1996 exhibition “Mixing Messages.” Their work is featured prominently in Suffragettes to She-Devils (Liz McQuiston, Phaiden Press,1997) and Confessions of the Guerrilla Girls (Harper Collins, 1995). Croteau currently directs and curates a window gallery in her storefront studio (ART ON ARMITAGE), bringing fine art into the Chicago streetscape where passers-by can see work by contemporary fine artists of many disciplines from many countries.

© Mary Ellen Croteau