Artist Bio
Mary received her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989 where she studied with Neil Welliver, Bill Jacklin, Harmony Hammond and Red Grooms. She also studied at the Vermont Studio, the Maryland Art Institute, and Ecole des Arts d’Avignon France. Her work is exhibited widely in galleries along the Norfolk coast, in London and abroad. She exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2023 and for the Holt Festival Sir John Hurt Art Prize several years running. Mary is also an artist educator whose workshops delight and inspire the young and young at heart teaching visual empathy. She has travelled widely, is a playful adventurer with an insatiable curiosity about the universe that feeds her work as an artist.

Artist Statement
My paintings reflect upon the impermanence of life and the forces of nature.
Listening to words flow across the landscape, I weave my poetry into layers of jewel-toned colours exposing the overlooked and hidden. I paint brilliant light and deep shadow, the far horizon and the passing of time. I am drawn to the delicate, the broken, the most fleeting, these are timeless and possess a powerful resonance. At the crossroads, beauty remains.
Moved by the British coastal tidelands I encourage viewers to see and feel ourselves as part of the landscape, to cherish the natural world ensuring its special qualities are both valued and looked after. Inspiring others to steward the natural world, I translate gathered data such as onsite sketches, the tide table, and scientific research into paintings that engage an audience with emotional resonance. My work raises awareness of human-induced issues and natural processes connected to ecosystems and environment including: identification of marine flora and fauna; short-term environmental change and focuses on the temporal nature of life and learning to embrace it fully.
In 2009, I attended a symposium on the Ethics of Water where the research, political drivers, and economic tendrils of the content changed how I create art. Paintings are begun on site in the landscape and finished in the studio from memory adding layers of colours, weaving in poetry, and textures. Standing along the edge of the water my aim with the work is to expand the viewer’s field of vision appealing to the senses, sound, smell, the rush of air as waves crash at your feet reminding the viewer there are multiple angles to see the world. I seek to envelop the viewer enhancing experiences by somehow tapping into our humanity reviving ancient traditions, rights of passage or epic journeys.