Mary is a Durham based art-historian turned representational painter. Working in oil, she strives to imagine others complexly. She enjoys portraits above all, but finds subjects in many diverse and unexpected places. She loves color, and the subtle variations in lived experience that lenses inadequately capture. The moments she enjoys creating the most are the illusions that art specifically allows. The little lies of color and shape that at the same time feel so real. That reality is just a game of light that exists for the individual in every moment.
Sanctuary:
Sanctuary / Vulnerability / Love / Support / Courage all wrapped up in an emotional tangle too overlapping to rightly separate, Phoebe as a portrait just peaks into that welter of emotions. Though not the only figure, it is unquestionably her alone that we're interacting with. Peeking from the safety of her father's arms, she looks out through her hair and sees us / you. The riot of external textures and colors and patterns finds a window of calm and connection out through her attention. There are no answers, or the reassurance of a conclusion - just a moment of connection and empathy with a complicated experience of anxiety and support, both emotional and physical.
Fable:
Fable is an ethereal, wintery portrait of a woman in a misty forest taking down the hood of her cloak. I so love the otherworldliness of fairy tales, and the sense of liminality. I wanted to paint her with the anticipation of what will happen next. Is she about to speak, has she just seen something, where is she going, is she putting her hood up or taking it down? Those moments in-between in that misty, snowy forest where all the sound is muffled and everything is quiet. I want that feeling to catch you.