“My work is rooted in the belief that joy is a form of resistance.

In a world that often asks us to shrink, dim, or disconnect from ourselves, I create art that does the opposite—it reignites, expands, and remembers. Through bold color, layered texture, and abstract form, I make work that reconnects people with their vibrancy—the part of them that still feels curious, alive, and full of possibility.

My materials and process mirror this emotional landscape. I paint on transparent polyester film using fluid acrylics, letting color slide, pool, and collide on uneven surfaces. The result is organic, expressive, and intuitive—compositions that are less about telling a literal story and more about creating a feeling. A reminder. A spark.

Collage plays an essential role in this exploration. By cutting, layering, and reassembling fragments, I create new relationships between color, movement, and form. What was once separate becomes unified—transformed into something more dynamic and alive. This act of breaking apart and rebuilding reflects the same emotional journey within the work itself: one of rediscovery, expansion, and possibility.

Together, painting and collage allow me to push beyond control and into emergence, where unexpected beauty takes shape and energy reveals itself.

Because your light was never lost.

It just needed something to reflect it back.“

More Than
Superpower

Inside Mary Zeran's collage series, joy turns out to be the least random thing on the page

Mary Zeran says that joy is a superpower. Looking at her recent series, I'd argue her real superpower is quieter than that: the ability to take bold, unruly forms, like torn paper, poured pigment, a fat swipe of black paint, and land them, again and again, on a single sheet so small it could fit in your hands, with a composure that never once looks like effort.

Zeran works in collage, cutting and layering transparent polyester film she has painted with fluid acrylic, letting color slide and pool across uneven surfaces. The technique traces back to Shibori and to her own family: her mother a maker, her grandmother a textile designer. You can feel that lineage in the work. These pieces read like fabric before they read like paint… folded, dyed, pieced.

Moving across this body of work, some colors just keeps returning. A cobalt blue stripe. A red that shows up as a solid plane in one piece and a striated, wood-grain texture in the next. It never feels repetitive, because it never repeats the same way twice, it comes in a different material, a different density, a different mood each time, so that recognizing it feels less like noticing a habit and more like recognizing a voice.

Read the full review in EDITORIAL.