SCI Superstar: Mariam Pare

They say once an artist, always an artist. For Mariam Pare, who hails from Chicago and is one of the best mouth painters in the US, this couldn’t be more true. Injured when she was 20 in a shooting, her passion for art refused to be diminished after her injury.

From graduating with a degree in fine art to selling her work with one of the most renowned disability artistic organizations in the world, read on for Mariam’s remarkable story of artistic triumph in the face of paralysis.

Why She’s Fearless

We all know how difficult it is to move on after a spinal cord injury, and for Mariam, shot in the back by an unknown assailant and sustaining a C5-6 injury, she had a lot of re-learning to do when it came to painting, one of her favorite artistic expressions pre-injury. Mariam loves to paint with oils and acrylics, and her hallmark – interplaying paintings with mixed media.

And while many people her injury level prefer to paint with their arms and use modified splints, Mariam found the most control using her mouth. It began when a therapist in rehab who taught her how to sign her name using a pen in her mouth, and she hasn’t looked back. In 2005, she finished her BFA and two Associate Degrees in Graphic Design and Web Design.

What we really love about Mariam’s work is her “mashup” of her oil paintings with media -graphic design, digital art, website design, videography and stop-motion animation. Stop-motion animation is definitely something that’s not as popular as it once was, but Mariam is keeping the art-form alive. Check out her stop-motion animation featurette using candy

Digital art is one of her expressions that she really enjoys; a combination of photography, drawing and computer manipulation, allowing her to create photos she’d never be able to take on her own otherwise. She’s so good at creating digital art in fact that she was hired to create many of the images for the game, The Exquisite Corpse. Check out her digital portfolio

What’s Next

Not surprisingly, Mariam was a perfect fit for The Mouth and Foot Painting Artists association, a for-profit organization that gives artists with disabilities a source of income by reprinting their working on such things as greeting cards and calendars. Check out the association

Mariam also had the opportunity to show her work all over the world, as well as sell her work to people with private collections. She’s traveled around the nation showcasing her art, and continues to amaze people with her talent. In 2016, she even met Pierce Brosnan after he bought a painting she did of him. We can’t wait to see where her career goes next.

– Visit her site: Mariam Pare Art & Design