Roslyn Mazzilli Biography

 

"There"Roslyn Mazzilli was born in Brooklyn, New York and moved to California in 1973. She studied art at San Jose State University and recieved a Masters Degree in Fine Arts in Sculpture in 1981.

Mazzilli has kept a studio in the San Francisco Bay Area for more then twenty-two years. She has recently moved her studio to upstate New York near Woodstock. She creates most of her sculptures from design to fabrication in-house with a staff of assistants to help her.

"Spectra"In 1982, she created a proposal for a large scale site-specific-sculpture "Spectra" to be placed in a pond at Mills College in Oakland, CA. It was accepted in an outdoor sculpture show included in the prestigious 12th International Sculpture Conference held in Oakland, California. Mazzilli has been among California's most successful woman sculptors who produce public art. At the forefront of the painted metal movement, her work has been described as being composed of elegant and formal abstractions of images in nature, that are graceful and musuclar, poised yet kinetic.

Among her highly acclaimed public commissions is "There", a monumental sculpture installed in Oakland City Center, in downtown Oakland answering the addage from the late poet and ex-Oaklander, Gertrude Stein, who wrote about Oakland after returning years later "there is no there there". This work contributed a major focal point for civic pride and community awareness for the ongoing downtown revitalization. "There"

Mazzilli has placed sculpture throughout the United States. For over twenty year she has worked with developers, architects, engineers, and community organizations in helping to bring about successful solutions to each unique site that she is called upon to work with. Her sculptures are sensitive to, and inspired by, the sites and the community that they are placed in. She welcomes the commission process, and can supply upon request, references from former commissioning parties.