My Cup Filling Project Exhibition Guide

01.  Jumping In With Child-Like Enthusiasm 2017
6x8 Mixed Media On Wood

02.  Shield From The Rain 2017
Hand burned, stain, and found objects: mixed media on 6”x8” wood art panel 

I have spent the last 3 years trying to come to terms with my childhood and missing my mom, as I’m losing her to Alzheimer’s. The umbrella represents the separation of adulthood and childhood. Barbara Bradley (1927-2008) is an illustrator who was commissioned by the famous pineapple company Dole Foods. I was a fan when I was a kid and when I came home to clean my grandma’s room after she passed, I found vintage postcards of her work. I’ve incorporated her work into mine as a nod to her rare work and representing me as a child, also memorializing my grandma and her hoarded keepsakes. You will see Barbara Bradley’s work throughout this series.

03.  Self-Titled (Debut) 2018
Hand carved, stain, wood burn on 18”D plywood 

Self-Titled is my latest and most emotional piece. Recently finished April 2018, I completed this piece in 5 days while on a business trip to Guam. Wood carving is a prominent cultural pacific island tradition. I was lucky to speak to local artisans as I worked on this piece. I started with the female outline and dug deep to who I am. My name is “Mar-y-sol” which means sea and sun. The carved imagery is an interplay of the ocean and the sun, feminine and the masculine, mother and child.

04.  Sol Reignited in Flame, Discovered 2017
Original Hand burned, stain, oil, soy sauce, vinegar, permanent marker and acrylic on 24”x48” Wood
Artist (Test) Print on 18”x26” Aluminum

Enchanted by a pro-surfer, offering to train me, I took the money I had saved up for my wedding and decided to fulfill my *real* dream to surf “good enough to be sociable.” Love never really panned out between us, but I decided to focus on being the that woman I dreamt of as a child and to reinvent myself into my that woman, hoping to fall in love again, but to find self-love first.

 05.  Commodification Of The Immigrant Dream In Technicolor 2018
Toner transfer and acrylic on 8”x8” wood panel

She’s the “Golden Girl with the Golden Pineapple.” I made my milestone move away from Oahu to pursue my professional career in 2010. I managed to get-by by staying focused on my goals of “making it” but over time I grew a void that my homesickness burned in my stomach and imagined my tunnel vision focus as the shape of home and my childhood dreams of being the beautiful exotic woman that graced old Dole Pineapple postcards. I’ve imagined that she’s my relative that traveled by boat in the plantation days. I imagine how much courage it takes to make that leap and that I should pursue my dreams to surf as it was for her to pursue her American dream.

06.  Into The White Wash 2017
burned, acrylic and watercolor on 6”x8” wood

Into The White Wash, Reimagining Rell Sunn and Training at Cliffs is a 3-part miniature series of mixed media pieces chronicles my surf training with a man I was hating-to-love and in whole, my cup filling project; an endeavor of overcoming my fears (of the water & failure) and fulfilling my childhood dreams to be a surfer.

07.  Reimagining Rell Sunn 2017
burned, acrylic and watercolor on 6”x8” wood

Rell Sunn, a realized role model as I began training. There’s a lot to think about while out in the water. I imagined myself as Rell while I would wade in the water (terrified), watching, studying the waves, waiting for the right wave.

08.  Training at Cliffs 2017
burned, acrylic and watercolor on 6”x12” wood

I built a strange love/hate relationship with my trainer. He had an off-hands attitude to teaching me how to surf. This is what I imagined he saw from the top of the cliff at Diamond Head.

09.  Fall Out, Fall In: Seattle and Water Sliding 2017
Artist Enhanced Laser Burn 

I consider this piece my Seattle storyboard. I lived on Bainbridge Island, often seeing the Seattle skyline.

10.  Aging Warrior Mana 2018
Hand burned, acrylic and luminescent powder on 8”x8” wood panel

My work is also evolving into further inquiry of immersion with the ocean, specifically body surfing, free-diving and stand up paddleboarding, as different incarnations of the same character.

11.  Unpack for the Win 2018
Hand burned, acrylic, toner transfer on 8”x8” wood

12.  Dance With Her #1 - Reef Break  2017
Laser burned, stain and acrylic on 6”x8” wood 

More recent pieces in the miniature training series, “Dance With Her (1)” and “Dance With Her (2)” 2017 are images of female bodysurfers. I grew up deathly afraid of the ocean growing up and this is what I wish I had the courage to do in the water. This is an exercise to explore further the dynamics of the waves, the ocean, and the feeling of freedom I now have in the water. Original artwork is wood burn, wood stain, dye and acrylic on 6x8 wood panel.

13.  Dance With Her #2 - Shore Break 2017
Laser burned, stain and acrylic on 6”x8” wood

14.  Ride In Overturning Moment 2017

Long inspired by Plato’s Symposium and by the men I met after I left my marriage engagement, I began male portraits that I have been calling the “Eternal Cup-filling Man.” He is the male counterpart to my semi-anonymous self-portraits. The Eternal Cup Man is a nod to the stories of Maui, the Hawaiian demi-God read to me as a young girl. In my imagination and modern day context of bodysurfing, he is in a whirl of forces much stronger than him. In the process of being immersed in an uncontrollable circumstances, he learns to utilize and ride through them, despite its deafening nature, alive and exhilarated. The man and woman are not connected physically but dreamt in synchronicity at different stages of their journey. They may or may not know each other, but they are trying to find each other while finding themselves.

15.  Torque & Moment Equilibrium (on wood) 2018
Burned, acrylic, toner transfer on 12”x24” wood

Inspired by fundamental structural concepts and a venn diagram, I inquire further of how two people can connect without sharing time and space, but spirit.

16.  My Core, Integrity & Journey 2018
Original 24”x48” burned, stain, acrylic, toner transfer, epoxy and origami paper on wood.
Enhanced 18”x36” aluminum print shown with acrylic and luminescent powder.

Once having just moved home from Seattle, I was watching my mom move into the advanced phases of Alzheimer's, I began “My Core, Integrity & Journey” to help grieve such a slow and devastating loss. Trying to reflect on where my spirit lies, I found that it lies with my mom, the first love-of-my-life, my mom and the core of who I am today. This ever evolving piece helps me remember her and how much she is of me; a constant reminder that the best thing I can do for her and myself is to live a life with grounded courage that she would be proud of having herself. This piece centers on finding stability throughout an ever-happening journey, building trust within my own spirit and facing the future without her physical being, with courage.  I fondly call this female silhouette, “Auntie Puma.”

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Honolulu born-and-raised, Marysol A. Damo’s mixed-media art started in a graphic arts class freshman year in high school. She eventually turned to freelance value-trade based graphic design specializing in industrial arts, product packaging, publications and album covers. Marysol broke out of her shell while becoming part of the music community, playing in bands and having a short-lived radioshow on KTUH. She soon found that her love for mathematics and art converge in her current profession of Architecture.

Marysol pursued and obtained her Doctorate of Architecture at the University of Hawaii, rounding out her academic career with a final project entitled Ecotourism in the Philippines. Recently in 2018, Marysol passed her last Architecture Registration Exam, finally able to call herself an Architect.

Marysol built her architecture professional career off-island in the San Francisco Bay Area, Hong Kong, Guam and Seattle. Relocating back to Hawaii in late 2015, Marysol is reclaiming her youth doing what she always wanted: to be a surfer and an artist!

Marysol works out artist studio that she shares with her partner in Downtown Honolulu art district of Chinatown, ECM Vision Studio, 114C North King Street. She is available for commissions, and most of her work are available as reproductions, by request.

www.marysoladamo.com
www.linkedin.com/in/marysoladamo
instagram: @marysoladamo