Artist Statment
During an artist residency in St. Agnes on the Isles of Scilly, I spent a blissful day on the most perfect remote sunny beach, with a white seal pup for company. It felt like we were both waiting patiently for his mum to return from hunting. Quietly, deeply, I felt a universal truth, a feeling connected to everything.
When confronted with the vastness, I looked to the rock pools to ground me, inspired by a friend's framed painting by EQ Nicholson depicting a woodland rock study. I was seeking an objective reality that holds true across all contexts, cultures, and times, serving as an interconnected part of a larger whole. It was a unifying thread that stitched me to something so vast reminding us all that we are part of something greater. In North Norfolk, this truth appears in the saltmarsh and high-tides. Everything waits in time, seeing sunlight as well as the shadow.
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The impermanence of the tidal landscape shapes the East Anglian coastline where Mary Blue lives and the environments she captures in paint. Her paint is applied in generous smears, slurps and splashes over expertly drawn, softer veils of underpainting. The clarity of the coastal air, its eddies and squalls feel part of her vision, described in the vigour of her brush strokes.
Mary received MA (Fine Arts) from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. She also studied at the Vermont Studio, the Maryland Art Institute, and Ecole des Arts d’Avignon France. Her work is exhibited in Norfolk, London and abroad. She was shortlisted for the Sir John Hurt Art Prize in 2020 and 2021.
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About the author
Paul Vater
PAUL VATER
Paul conducts studio visits to maintain strong relationships with artists, designers and craftspeople who show their work with us. He manages the main C&C website and has developed the online shop where selected works are presented for sale.
Paul established his design company, Sugarfree, in 1990 and quickly gained a reputation for delivering fresh, effective marketing campaigns and brand identities for clients including Save the Children Fund, United Nations Association and UNHCR. Over the years those added to the roster include IPC Magazines, Arts Council England, The Roundhouse, Barbican Centre, Arts Marketing Association, Look Ahead Housing and Care, Paddington Waterside, BBC Worldwide, Commonwealth Foundation, Prestel, City of London Corporation, Baker Street Quarter, Victoria BID and the University of East Anglia.