Margi Weir

Margi Weir, a recently retired Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, earned her MFA in painting from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA); her MA in painting from New Mexico State University; her BFA in painting from San Francisco Art Institute; and her BA in art history from Wheaton College, Massachusetts.

In 2019, the Puffin Foundation awarded Weir a grant to support her work on Justice in America that was shown in solo shows in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Also, in 2017, the Puffin Foundation awarded Weir a grant to support her work on gun violence that was shown in solo shows in Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. Weir has won numerous awards for her work, including a 2020 Creative Research Award from Wayne State University; a 2016 Best of Show Grand Prize at the Las Vegas Contemporary Art Center; as well as a 2015 Best of Show award in the Human Rights Exhibition, South Texas College, McAllen, TX.

Additionally, she has exhibited widely across the country and abroad, notably at Ivan Karp's OK Harris Gallery in New York and the Ruth Bachofner Gallery in Santa Monica, CA.   She has completed installation pieces at Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (ATHICA), Jonathan Ferrara Gallery (New Orleans LA), Central Features Gallery (Albuquerque NM), Lexington Art League (Lexington KY), the Elaine Jacob Gallery (Detroit, MI) and the Las Cruces Museum of Art (Las Cruces, NM).  

Pandemic Painting Lessons is a new series of paintings, on Plexiglas panels, that bears witness to that convoluted process of teaching and communicating almost exclusively online for several years during the Covid -19 Pandemic. Along with including various references to on-screen iconography (stickers, icons, symbols), it also merges contemporary figurative painting situations with art historical painting references.

Hopper Prize Interview: https://hopperprize.org/margi-weir-interview/

Check out Margi Weir’s work: https://margiweir.weebly.com/