Marci Washington (Painting/Drawing 2002, MFA 2008) makes very dark art indeed, so her inclusion in Juxtapoz magazine's special Dark Arts compendium—a book about contemporary "art that aims to be unsettling"—was no surprise to her fans. That her painting was featured on the cover was a surprise, and a great one.

Art-savvy horror flick lovers also spotted her work in the 2009 movie Jennifer's Body. Her painting Stricken is on the slanted wall above the bed in the scene where Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried almost make out, and her cut-paper chandelier of severed heads is reflected in a mirror in another scene.

Decapitated heads, disembodied hands, and ghostly skin hover over dark backgrounds in almost all of Washington's recent work. "It's best to just hop aboard as Washington unveils the wonderfully grim characters that hide out in her head and trouble the rest of us," said Brady Welch of Shotgun Review in a write-up of her April 2009 solo show at Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco. "Washington's color palette, like the larger project she has set before herself, tends toward darker hues. The subjects in her paintings are generally pale, lithe, dulled by drug or drink, and, on more than one occasion, drooling ruby-red blood or some sort of black crud. . . . The effect is supremely creepy, and very intoxicating."

Washington describes her work as a kind of fictional narrative, rife with historical connections. "It's like I'm illustrating a novel that doesn't exist. If it did, it would probably be a lot like Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, or The Turn of the Screw—novels that function as social commentary as well as haunting epics of supernatural romanticism."

Washington's boyfriend is Deth P. Sun, also a great artist and a CCA alum (Painting/Drawing 2002). "Deth and I met at CCA in the Meyer Library, where we both liked to sleep. We live together and share a studio and have two cats, Penelope and Thor. It's really nice to work late nights together listening to music—pretty much just like when we were in school. It's good to be with someone who understands that you work all the time and have a weird sleeping schedule. We definitely have overlapping interests, like history and stories, and we're really different but still influence each other in a lot of weird ways.

"The thing that I liked most about CCA was its emphasis on finding your own voice. I felt super supported to do my own thing instead of being pressured to make work that would fit in with other work being made. Teachers like Mary Snowden, James Gobel, Roy Tomlinson, Franklin Williams, and David Huffman all encouraged the weirdness and tried to help me make it better.

"I originally thought I'd go to grad school in Los Angeles and moved there after I finished my undergrad degree. After touring the schools I ended up coming back to CCA because I thought the work was better and more diverse. Plus there has always been something really down-to-earth about CCA that I love—an unpretentious, roll-up-your-sleeves-and-work kind of vibe. Maybe it's left over from the missing C, but people here, especially in the Painting/Drawing Program, expect you to really work, not just talk about it."

Other recent events of note in Washington's growing career include a residency at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York, and inclusion in the 2010 edition of Art Basel Miami Beach. She's also excited to be teaching beginning painting at ASUC Art Studio on the UC Berkeley campus. You can see her work in person in the exhibition Secret Drawings at the Palo Alto Art Center in June 2010. She will also be featured in the April 2010 edition of Juxtapoz magazine, and she's in the current volume of New American Paintings.

Related:
www.marciwashington.com
www.dethpsun.com
marcianddeth.blogspot.com
Juxtapoz magazine's Dark Arts
Jennifer's Body at iMDB
Marci Washington's Dark Mirror reviewed by Brady Welch in Shotgun Review