Since the 1990s, Mari Eastman has produced drawings and paintings with a casual yet deft touch. Her whimsical strokes nod to fashion, popular culture, and the personal and draw our attention to the allure found in seductive garment surfaces, the empty gaze of a model, or an escapist moment discovered in nature. Eastman often uses alternative materials that physically complicate her sensual and seductive surfaces, disrupting the seamless flow of her work and allowing the viewer to both participate in and stand back from today's image-feed lifestyle.

Mari Eastman was born in 1970 in Berkeley, CA, and lives in Chicago, IL. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL (1996) and her BFA from Smith College in Northampton, MA (1992).

Eastman has mounted solo exhibitions at The Green Gallery in Milwaukee, WI (2023); Goldfinch Gallery in Chicago, IL (2021); BomBon Projects in Barcelona, Spain (2020); Grifter in New York City, NY (2020); Monte Clark Gallery in Vancouver, Canada (2016); and Cherry and Martin in Los Angeles, CA (2011), among others.

She has been featured in group exhibitions such as Speed to Roam at Tif Sigfrids Gallery in Athens, GA (2022); I’m Afraid to Own a Body at Poker Flats in Williamstown, MA (2021); Contemporary Paintings from the Collection at Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton, MA (2019); With a Capital P: Selections by Six Painters at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Elmhurst, IL (2019); and American Genre: Contemporary Painting at the ICA Maine College of Art in Portland, ME (2017).

Her work has been written about in Frieze (2022), The Los Angeles Times (2021), The Brooklyn Rail (2011), and others.