Painter Mary Hambleton was diagnosed with advanced melanoma in June of 2002. For 6 plus years she defied the odds, living a full life though a challenging one, mounting several one-person shows, teaching, traveling and receiving a Guggenheim, two Pollock-Krasners, a Gottlieb, and a Fellowship to Ballinglen Foundation in Ireland. She died on January 9, 2009.

Her work chronicled her journey of living with the disease, starting with the introduction of images of extinct species into her once abstract work, and later images from the innumerable scans of her body. Mary never let her illness define her, but chose to define it instead by transforming it into art. As her own energy waned, she took the scans of the disease that would ultimately take her, and she turned those into striking and profound images. In that sense, she had the last word, because her body of work is a living, poignant reminder of who she was.

This exhibit is presented in collaboration with the Purdue Oncology Sciences Center’s “Cancer, Culture and Community” program. The Creating Hope Community Project invites submissions of artwork that expresses, or shares, your view or interaction with cancer.

Invitation to High School Art Teachers to involve classes

High School artist registration form