Interface (Collaboration with Dennis Nechvatal)

Born in 1949 in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, Mary Bero received her B.S. in 1971 from Stout State University in Menomonie, Wisconsin. Largely self-taught, Bero is known for her assertive, embroidered miniature portraits. Her works are often mixed-media assemblages that incorporate embroidery, fiber art, fabric, and painting. Her subjects, positioned frontally, stare intently outward towards the viewer. They have been described as masks of psychic scar tissue, at once gazing aggressively but also impassively watching. Bero has been the recipient of several awards, including two National Endowment Fellowship for the Arts Grants (1986; 1992) and a Creative Arts Fellowship from the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission (1996). She is represented in the public collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum and AT&T, New York, among others.