My current body of work lays at the intersection of the natural world and domestic space. I use the trope of stylized wallpaper pattern to reflect upon our fraught relationship with nature and our increasing separation from it in modern life. In the series Wallpapers for a Warming World, plant motifs such as ferns are depicted for their soil remediation attributes, while other motifs reflect both domestic and invasive species. The battle for territory between the domestic and invasive is engaged in a wallpaper pattern intended for the beautification of domestic spaces, while also evoking the current march toward decreasing biodiversity. Historically, wallpaper pattern has relied on the stylized floral patterns to beautify constructed indoor spaces, and provide an anodyne background for indoor human activity. My wallpaper patterns take a decidedly more nuanced look at our environmental complacency.

Bio: Maggie Gourlay is an artist and arts educator. Her work includes both installation and two- dimensional work that explores the intersection of the natural world and domestic space. Exhibits include 2020 ICA Flatfiles Exhibit, Baltimore, From Plates to Plants, at the LES Ecology Center, NY, Crossing Boundaries & Breaking Borders: DMV Printmaking, at the American University Katzen Arts Center, Adaptation/Migration in the Anthropocene, a solo exhibit inside CULTURALDC’s mobile gallery/shipping container at the National Zoo, Wash, DC; and Not a Sunday Morning, part of Arlington Arts Center SOLOS 2016, among others. Her work is in the collection of the DC Arts and Humanities Art bank and Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, as well as private collections. A graduate of Georgetown University, Gourlay received her MFA in studio art from Towson University.