Mary Blue is an artist living and working in North Norfolk. She paints, works in art education and runs classes for professional and amateur artists.
When Mary looks at the coastline, she sees everything, not just the waves and the pebbles. She shows how small we are when we are up against the forces of nature. Forces that humans cannot control. She believes we have to give ourselves over to the power of wind, water and weather as wilderness finds a way.
She also paints orchard trees and garden flowers regularly. She sees fruit and flowers in bloom ripening to fullness as time passes as visual markers in our life cycle.
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 were among her tutors. 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 was shortlisted for the Sir John Hurt Art Prize in 2020 and 2021. Mary designs immersive art experiences and is also an artist educator whose workshops delight and inspire the young and young at heart. Most summers you can find her as a regular participant at Paint Out Norfolk, an en plein air competition. 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. I weave poetry into layers of jewel-toned colours exposing the overlooked hidden effects of time. 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 of impermanence, beauty remains.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 Studio with A View, Wells Next the Sea, UK
2019 Open Space, Wells Next the Sea, Norfolk, UK2019 Paint Out Holt, Norwich, Norfolk, UK
2018 Open Space, Wells Next the Sea, Norfolk, UK
2017 Norfolk Open Studios, Kettlestone, Norfolk, UK
1998 Green Gallery, Havertown, USA
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Avant Gardeners, Contemporary and Country, Houghton Hall, Norfolk UK
2022 Thomas, Caswell and Blue, Walsingham Gallery, UK
2021 Rock, Paper, Scissors, Contemporary and Country, Houghton Hall, Norfolk UK
2021 Vogue III, Boomer Gallery, London, UK
2021 A Selection of East Anglian Artists, Walsingham Gallery, UK
2021 John Hurt Art Prize Holt Festival, UK2021 Paint Out Norfolk,UK
2020 John Hurt Art Prize Holt Festival, UK2020 Paint Out Norfolk, UK
2019 Paint Out, Wells, Norfolk UK
2018 Paint Out, Hostry, Norfolk UK2018 Inheritance Norwich Castle Museum, Norfolk UK2018 Paint Out, Wells, Norfolk UK
2017 Norfolk by Design (now Contemporary and Country), Houghton Hall, Norfolk UK
2017 Birdie Fortescue, Burnham Market, Norfolk UK2017 Norfolk Open Studios, Kettlestone, Norfolk UK
2016 Norfolk-by-Design (now Contemporary and Country), Field Dalling, Norfolk
1994 McClelland Gallery, Philadelphia, USA
1993 Philadelphia Printmaking Studio, Philadelphia, USA
1991 Liner Gallery, New York, USA
1990 Print Roulette, Philadelphia Printmaking, Philadelphia, USA
1989 MFA Show, International Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, USA