Marybeth Chew

Work samples

Screaming Skull

23" x 19", watercolor on cold pressed paper, 2024
Blood and Black Lace

24" x 30", oil on canvas, 2025
Bat Eye Blob

Bat Eye Blob, 22” x 20”, Watercolor on hot press paper, 2023

About Marybeth

Marybeth Chew is painter originally from Wilmington, DE. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 2001-2005, and received an MFA from the Leroy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at MICA in 2016.

View Marybeth's Resume

Oils - 2025

Blood and Black Lace

24" x 30", oil on canvas, 2025
Evil

25" x 18", oil on panel, 2025
Blue

20" x 16", oil on canvas, 2025
Untitled

24" x 18", oil on canvas, 2025

Watercolor Film Reference Head Studies 2024/ 2025

Screaming Skull

23" x 19", watercolor on cold pressed paper, 2024
Untitled

30" x 22", watercolor on cold pressed paper, 2025
Witch

30" x 22". watercolor on cold pressed paper, 2025
Pieces 2

22" x 30", watercolor on cold press paper, 2025

Film Reference Head Studies in Oils

I have worked with paused images of faces from film reference since the early 2000's. The attraction to these images is first my love of the films and genre film itself. I have watched so many genre and B films that they are part of my own imagination and are the most comfortable source of catharsis for me. I love the beauty of film as a medium, and try to preserve its look in my paintings, while remediating the effect and expression of that imagery into corporeal thick and layered paint. Initially, I worked with images from paused vhs tapes, and now use digital photos of an old tube tv for reference. The cathode tube lighting heightens color and distorts details in a way that is inspiring to me aesthetically and which helps me add to the image from my own interpretation, identification, and expression.

The impetus for these paintings is processing emotional experiences into a simplified direct proxy, much like how genre and pulp stories work on our imaginations. They are an emotional release for me, as images and in the process of painting. I choose images that impact me both as pictures and moments within the experience of a story. Paused, the expression is separated from the events, and the isolation makes the images open as conduit of just feeling, interpretable for both myself and the viewer.

Black Narcissus

Black Narcissus, 24 x 24, oil on canvas, 2020
Pieces

Pieces, 20 x 24, oil on canvas, 2022

Available for Purchase
Witch

Witch, 36” x 24”, Oil on Canvas , 2023

Available for Purchase
Fighter

Fighter, 24” x 18”, oil on panel, 2023

Available for Purchase
Bloody Teeth

Bloody Teeth , 24” x 24”, Oil on Panel, 2023

Available for Purchase
Ghosts and More Ghosts

Ghosts and More Ghosts , 24" x 24", 2023, oil on canvas

Available for Purchase
Blood Theater

Blood Theater, 24" x 24", oil on canvas

Available for Purchase
Invasion UFO

'Invasion UFO', 10" x10", oil on canvas, 2017

Available for Purchase
Birds

Birds, 2004, 18" x 16", oil on canvas
Alice Sweet Alice

Alice Sweet Alice, 2004, 20" x 20", oil on canvas

Serial Watercolors

These serial watercolor painting use reference from genre film, stray internet imagery, my snapshots, and imagination. They are maximalist sci fi fantasy non linear narratives, and are inspired by the movement of time in film, the genres of science fiction, B horror, and experimental film, the history of western painting, comic books, dream imagery, and quasi metaphysical ideas via pop fiction.

In this work I am enjoying many weird varied stories and combining them into elusive almost stories. The media references often contain problematic cultural symbols and subtexts. Part of the process in each piece is an associative exploration of ideas and discovering what has been subconsciously generated in my internalization of them.

The ultimate whole, materially and narratively, adds a historically weighted tactility, urges inferences, and suggests threads of mysticism in popular media and cyberspace.

Bat Eye Blob

Bat Eye Blob, 22” x 20”, Watercolor on hot press paper, 2023
Eyes Tongues

Eyes Tongues, 20" x 16", watercolor on hot press paper, 2024

Available for Purchase
In the Air

In the Air, 22" x 30", watercolor on hotpress paper, 2024

Available for Purchase
Lair.jpg

Pace, 23” x 30”, Watercolor on 400 lb cold press paper, 2023

Available for Purchase
3- Portal, 22” x 23”, watercolor on cold press paper, 2023.jpg

Portal, 22” x 23”, watercolor on cold press paper, 2023

Available for Purchase
Snake

Snake, 12" x 14", watercolor on cold press paper, 2022
Loving Your Fate

Loving Your Fate, 2021, 22" x 20", watercolor on cold press paper
Looked Back

Looked Back, 20" x 18", watercolor on cold press paper, 2022

Available for Purchase
Farther Out

Farther Out, 20" x 16", watercolor on hot press paper, 2022
Transmit

'Transmit', 16" x 12", watercolor on cold press paper, 2021

Available for Purchase

Serial Oil Paintings

It is a Good Life Which Leads to a Good Death

'It is a Good Life Which Leads to a Good Death', 36" x 36", oil on canvas, 2022

Available for Purchase
Woman at Her Bath (After Degas)

' Woman at Her Bath (After Degas)' , 36" x 36", oil on canvas, 2020
Night Walk, 18" x 24", oil on canvas, 2021

Night Walk, 18" x 24", oil on canvas, 2021

Available for Purchase
Blood Feast

Blood Feast, 22" x 18", Oil on Canvas, 2019
Re Enactment

'Re-Enactment' , 18" x 24", oil on canvas, 2019

Available for Purchase
Peeping Tom in the Slime Bowl a Rama Beyond the Stars

'Peeping Tom in the Slime-Bowl-a-Rama Beyond the Stars', 20 x 16, oil on panel, 2020

Available for Purchase
Mirror Crack'd (With Elizabeth Taylor)

Mirror Crack'd (With Elizabeth Taylor) 54" x 28", Craft Paint and Acrylic on canvas, 2018

Available for Purchase

Habitats

During quarantine I began this series of natural history display paintings, thinking essentially about extinction. The artificial scenes felt relatable to the surreal experience of interacting through computer screens, feeling like a display myself. As the series progressed I began to think of these more as considering mediated presentations and odd illusions of nature.

Lion

Lion, 24" x 24", oil on canvas, 2021

Available for Purchase
Primates Case at the Smithsonian

Primates Case at the Smithsonian, 24" by 2'4" oil on canvas, 2017
Birds Display Case

Bird Display Case, 36" x 24", Oil on canvas, 2021

Available for Purchase
Chameleon

Chameleon, 16" x 20", oil on canvas, 2022

Available for Purchase
The Long Climb

The Long Climb, 16" x 20", oil on panel, 2022
Zoo Interior Room

Zoo Interior Room, 18”x 18”, oil on panel, 2021

Available for Purchase
Big Cat

Big Cat, 12" x 12" oil on panel, 2022
Museum

Museum, 18x 24, oil on panel, 2021

Available for Purchase
Big Cats Display

Big Cats Display- Detail-, work in progress , 30" x 40"

Scenes

Kid With TV

Kid With TV, 18" x 24", oil on panel, 2023
Car Explosion 2

Car Explosion 2, 12" x 16", oil on oil paper, 2023
Car Exploding
Little Stories

"Little Stories" 12"x 12", oil on panel, 2021

Available for Purchase
Rendezvous

Rendezvous, 36" x 24", Oil on Canvas, 2019
Battle Beyond the Sun

Battle Beyond the Sun, 36" x 24", Oil on Canvas, 2018
Amazing Colossal Man

Amazing Colossal Man, 24" x 24", Oil on Panel, 2018

Available for Purchase
Miniseries

Miniseries,12" x 12", Oil on Panel, 2018
Annie Opens the Door

Annie Opens the Door, 12" x 9", oil on canvas, 2016
Bears

Before and After

Taken from 'before/after' cosmetic surgery advertisements, these paintings raise issues about the power of objectification, how we relate with our embodiment, and how much we are possessions of a society. These images illustrate culture manipulating the extremes of the personal, physically transforming these many individual forms. My emphasis is on commonality between the persons throughout these body states, and a fluctuating, elastic, sense of identity.

Before and After Tummy Tuck

Before and After Tummy Tuck, 30" x 30", 2019, Oil on Canvas

Available for Purchase
Before After Abdominoplasty

Before After Abdominoplasty, 24" x 18", oil on canvas, 2019

Available for Purchase
Before and After All Together 2

Before and After All Together 2 , 46" x 38", 2019, Oil on Canvas

Available for Purchase
Before and After All Together 1

Before and After All Together 1 , 24" x 24", 2019 Oil on Canvas

Available for Purchase
Before and After Lipo

Before and After Lipo, Oil on Canvas, 48" x 46", 2017
Before and After Stomachs

Before and After Stomacha, 20" by 16", 2016, oil on canvas

Available for Purchase
Before and After Stomach 2

Before and After Stomach 2, Oil on Canvas, 20" x 16", 2016
Before After Implant

Before After Implant, 36" x 48", 2016
Before After Butts

'Before/After Butts' 20" by 16" 2016 oil on canvas
Before and After Butts 2

Before and After Butts 2, Oil on Canvas, 20" x 16", 2016

Marker Drawings

This series of marker drawings were a bridge for me to watercolor and personal workshop of playing with story in multiple panels. They mostly use reference from just one film as an attempt to capture a gestalt of that film. A few branched out into combining references and creating a new story or set of comparisons.

Little Shop of Horrors

Little Shop of Horrors, 13" x 15", marker on tracing paper, 2017
Skin Comes Off

Skin Comes Off

11 x17

2017
Miss Marple: A Caribbean Mystery

Miss Marple: A Caribbean Mystery, 8 1/2 " by 11", marker on paper, 2017
Alligator

Alligator

8 1/2 x 11

2019
Def by Temptation

' Def by Temptation' 11 x 14 2019
Over the Edge

Over The Edge, 8 1/2 x 14, 2017
Body Melt

Body Melt, 17" by 11", marker on paper, 2017
Masters of the Skies

Masters of the Skies, 11" by 17", marker on paper, 2017
V

V, 17" by 11", marker on paper, 2017
The Being

The Being

8 1/2 x 11

2019