Sherry Markovitz

Sherry Markovitz (born 1947, Chicago, Illinois) received her BA from the University of Wisconsin in 1969, and moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington, where she earned her MFA in 1975. Markovitz’s early collaged paintings were on unstretched canvas or board, occasionally embellished with beads and ribbons. In the 1980s, that decorative impulse led to a series of fully beaded animal heads suggesting feminine trophy heads. In the 1990s, Markovitz developed wholly abstract works constructed from organic papier machê forms, still beaded, but much more restrained. By 2000, Markovitz began a series of doll images in beaded sculptures and also watercolor works on paper. The 2000s brought forth a number of other beaded sculptures based on stuffed animals followed by paintings of dolls and then, by 2012, dogs painted on unstretched cotton. In the last few years, Markovitz has created linear forms using pliable, looping branches, covered in beading.