Mary Babcock is a Hawaiʻi based visual and performance artist deeply interested in the intersection of art, contemplation and social activism. Mending is a central theme in her work, both as actual reparative action, and as metaphor for personal, social and environmental change. Her work is driven by a need to understand and critique her culture, and rooted in the desire to bridge two prevailing paradigms for art-making: art as beauty and art social criticism. Residing in the Pacific, her current focus is on cultural and ecological sustainability in the face of climate change.
Babcock is Professor of Sculpture and Expanded Practices at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and received her MFA from the University of Arizona and PhD in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She has performed and exhibited work in individual and collaborative contexts nationally and internationally including Korea, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Canada, The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the Ukraine, Cyprus, and Algeria and is in private and private collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the US Embassy in Niger.