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Mary Billyou is a lens-based artist who examines the archive, interpellation, and social practice. Her films have screened at venues including: Ambulante, Antimatter, CROSSROADS, Enguage, Film Mutations, Images Festival, The New Museum, Spectacle, Sundance, and White Box Gallery. Billyou’s work has been noted in publications including Artforum, Artnet, Hyperallergic and The New York Times. She is the recipient of awards from The New York Foundation for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, The Jerome Foundation and The Black Maria Film Festival. In addition to cinema screenings, Billyou’s work has been installed at Art in General, Rotunda Gallery, and A.I.R. Gallery. Billyou received her MFA in Film, Video, and New Media from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and attended The Whitney Independent Study Program in 2004.
Complementing her studio work, Billyou has documented durational performances for the artists Pope.L, Robin Rhode, Martha Rosler, and Anne Wilson. She programs screenings, including Satellite Cinema: Children’s Program, We Are What We Archive, and Women’s Punk Art Making Party. She has written for The Brooklyn Rail, Screen Slate, and Afterimage: The Journal for Media Arts and Cultural Criticism.
Filmmaker’s Coop
Video Data Bank
Getty Institute CV Born 1969, Hartford, CT
Lives & works in Ridgewood, NY
Education
2024–present Queens College, CUNY. M.L.S./M.A. in History
Rare Book School
2004 The Whitney Independent Study Program, NY, NY
2003 The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. M.F.A. Film, Video & New Media Graduate Colloquium Speaker
1991 The University of Rochester, Rochester, NY. B.A. Art History Graduated with Distinction Nominated for NEH Award in Film Studies
1990 MATRIX Art Gallery Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
Internship
Solo Exhibitions Microcinema: Films of Mary Billyou, RhizomeDC
2019
Why Sing When Nobody Hears? Films by Mary Billyou, Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2017
Select Group ExhibitionsProvisional Horizons, Ridgewood Open Studios, Supermoon & Lorimoto Gallery
2026
A Panoply of Techniques, Enguage Experimental Film Festival, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, WA
Horror and Haunting as Social Commentary, Virtual Int’l Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts
Rumor Has It, marytwo, Lucerne, Switzerland
Seeing the Big Picture, invitation by Sara Sowell, Milton Avery School for the Arts, Princeton University, NJ
Empty Arms, invitation by Suzanne Goldenberg, Umbrella House, NYC
Carry & Transform, Ridgewood Open Studios
Lorimoto Gallery, Ridgewood Open Studios
2025
Cauldron Film Fest, Salt Lake City, UT
What Next, Wide Open Experimental Film Festival, Oklahoma City, OK
Blind Date, Ridgewood Open Studios
2024
Film Party, Celluloid Now, Chicago Film Society, Chicago, IL
2023
Women’s Punk Art Making Parties, Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn, NY
Antimatter, Vancouver, Canada
Winter Windows, Supermoon Community Art Space, Ridgewood, NY
2021
Injerto 2019: Rituals, Ambulante Itinerant Film Festival, Mexico
2019
Joanie 4 Jackie 4 Ever, Fotofocus Biennial, The Mini Microcinema, Cincinnati, OH
Diverging Forms, Maryland Film Festival
Are You Tired of Forever? Cosmic Rays, Chapel Hill, NC
2018
a great unknown called trust, CROSSROADS, SFMoMA, San Francisco, CA
Experimental Superstars, Novi Sad, Serbia
2017
Grrrl Germs: A Visual History of Riot Grrrl, Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn, NY
The 27th Onion City Experimental Film Festival, Chicago, IL
The Short Circuit, Brighton, U.K.
2016
Select Awards
Queens College Foundation Master’s Scholarship
2025–2026
Pine Tree Fellow, Godwin-Ternbach Museum
2024–present
Arts Access Grant, Queens Art Fund, New York Foundation for the Arts
2024
Finishing Funds, New York State Council for the Arts
2012
Presentation Funds, New York State Council for the Arts
2011
Filmmaking Grant, The Jerome Foundation
2009
Finishing Funds, Experimental Television Center
2006
Director’s Citation, Black Maria Film Fesstival
2000
Select Press
Aaron Short. “Ridgewood’s Thriving Art Scene Steps Out of Bushwick’s Shadow,” Hyperallergic, May 11, 2026.
Elisabeth Kley.“Gotham Art and Theater,” Elisabeth Kley, Artnet.
2010
Daniel Pearce.“Ecsatic at St. Cecelia’s,” Idiom.
2010
Melissa Anderson.“Pie with Dignity,” Artforum.com.
2009
Holland Cotter.“Art in Review: Spectral Evidence,” The New York Times.
2007
Select PublicationsHysteria: Past Yet Present, exhibition catalogue, Paul Robeson Gallery.
2009
Inherent Vice: Bootleg Histories of Videotape and Copyright, Lucas Hildebrand, Duke University Press.
2009
“Breach Birth: The Hygiene of Screen Skins,” A. Lee Laskin, Octopus Journal, vol 4: Surface, University of California, Irvine.
2008
Select WritingMano Poderosa, or The All-Powerful Hand, Godwin-Ternbach Museum
The Brooklyn Rail
The Chainletter Tapes, Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, Berkely: University of California Press, vol 44, no. 6, May/June 2017, pp. 2–5.
Collections
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA
Video Data Bank, Chicago, IL
Filmmaker’s Cooperative, New York, NY
Last Updated 24.10.31 SELECTED WORK
1. Provisional Horizons
Ridgewood Open Studios
Supermoon Art Space
Ridgewood, NY
May 2026
Shadow, 25 x 11 , 2026
Shale, 25 x 11 , 2026
Urchin, 25 x 11 , 2026
2. Trellis, 2020.
3 mins., sound, 16mm transferred to digital video
A scratched grid filled with red. A creeping synthesizer paces howling wolves. An anonymous agent appears in a clearing.
Enguage Experimental Film Festival Nov 2025
3. Engauge Experimental Film Festival
Interbay Cinema Society
Northwest Film Forum
Seattle, WA
November 2025
Trellis, 2020.
4. Rumor Has It
marytwo
Lucerne, Switzerland
Aug 23–Nov 10, 2025Women’s Punk Art Making Party, 1993
3 mins excerpt, sound, video
The Velvet Chainletter, Joanie 4 Jackie
5. Women’s Punk Art Making Party, 1993, installation in Rumor Has It, marytwo, Lucerne, Switzerland, 2025.33 mins., sound, hi-8 transferred to digital
A documentary in which a group of young women meet for an art-making party. Six episodes are interspersed, allowing each participant a chance to represent themselves. Included: a feminist stripper preparing for work, a puppet show, and a music video.
Velvet Chainletter, Joanie4Jackie
6. The Greedy Girl, live reading, 2025.Virtual Int’l Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts: Embodied Spirits
THURSDAY 12-1:30PM ET—DEEP SPACESESSION: Horror and Haunting as a Social Commentary
Sept 18th, 2025
7. Screening the Big Picture with Sara Sowell organized by Christopher Harris
Milton Avery School for the Arts
April 2025
GUN, HAT, GIRL 2016.
9 mins., sound, 16mm
8. GIRL, 2016.
3 mins., sound, 16mm
For a single long take, the girl holds her own on the stage for a single long take. One of three one-hundred foot long 16mm films: GUN, HAT, & GIRL.
9. Over We Go, 2023.
7 mins., digital video, sound
Wide Open Experimental Film Festival, 2024
Cauldron Int’l Film Festival, 2024
10. Seneca Stop, 2024.
Mary Billyou b & w inkjet print on hannemuhle paper
Ridgewood, NY