Mary Jo Mazzella Ben-Nun was born and raised in the South Bronx and has been an illustrator and fine artist since 1985. She is a tenured full professor of art at Bronx Community College, where she has taught illustration and printmaking, among other subjects, since 1997. She also served as director of the college’s Hall of Fame Art Gallery from 2003 to 2012 and from 2015 to 2020, curating numerous exhibitions. Her original illustrations in paper collage have appeared in over 150 books, periodicals, and posters, including publications for BusinessWeek, Random House, and The Birmingham International Jazz Festival.

Her work has also been exhibited in galleries across the country. She has been the recipient of various awards, including The Communication Arts Annual Award of Excellence and The Society of Illustrators of LA Award of Merit. After working in paper collage for many years, she began producing collagraph prints that incorporate multiple textures. Together with her husband Roni, a graphic designer, she combines her collage and printmaking experience with the versatility of computer graphics to produce new artworks. These digital paper collage illustrations are part of a children’s ebook titled Of People and Virtues.

Education:

BFA, Illustration & Art Education, The School of Visual Arts, NY

MFA, Graphics, Lehman College, CUNY

Doctoral Equivalency, CUNY

Selected Exhibitions and Creative Work:

Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Rambam Healing the Sick, The Fine Art of Illustration, juried exhibition, Mills Pond Gallery, Saint James, NY, January–February 2017. 

A Sight for Sore Eyes, The National Association of Women Artists Online Juried Exhibition, October 2016–January 2017.

Faces, Figures and Places, Albert Wisner Public Library, Warwick, NY, August 2014.   

Rambam Healing the Sick and The Fortitude of Joan of Arc, Viridian Artists 25th International Juried Exhibition, Manhattan, NY, July 2014. 

The Kress Project, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA, Summer 2013.

Of People & Virtues, ebook, 2014.