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Born in 1940 in Brooklyn, NY, U.S.A. 1974, B.S. Virginia Commonwealth University Additional Studies, Brooklyn College and New York University 2003, Continuous Education, University of Virginia, Art Department - Etching |
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"The Roadworks series I completed in 1999, with its more pronounced emphasis on abstraction, seems in retrospect to have been a natural precursor to my current work, Mammoth, Series #1 and Mammoth, Series #2. Newspaper articles in the fall of 1999 concerning the most recent excavation in Siberia of the 23,000 year-old wooly mammoth captured my curiosity and imagination, especially a statement by the expedition's principal investigator: 'Oh, I can't wait to get him back to the lab, where I can feel his soft tissue and smell him.' Like the dinosaur, the mammoth's demise remains an object of speculation. I began to paint the story as I envisioned it, a tale of apocalyptic storms and climatic changes, the death of the mammoths and other creatures that perished with it. Great blocks of ice covered my canvases, I painted layers of bones and flesh within. Warming climates eventually left the mammoth to sink under his own weight, drowning slowly in tarry bogs. From death comes life, and Mammoth, Series #2 deals with rebirth and renewal. The palette changes from the blur of violent ice storms and dark burial pits to clear strong colors depicting light and hope. This story has taken me to yet new territories of painting. I am currently examining methods of telling it in the purest possible way, combining both figurative and abstract forms.
"In my incessant quest for "answers", I left the
mammoth resurrected and content, and have travelled on
to a new series entitled "Surrender". The word
itself, aside from its connotations in popular
culture, suffuses me with both anxiety and elation.
Loss of control, loss of "self", of long-held beliefs
and opinions come to mind. Darkness, the Unknown and
Joy surface, along with discovery and release. We
have so much less "control" over life than we think!
So, I try to paint it all, exploring these mysteries
with my brushes - from every angle I can coax from my
imagination."
"The tension that exists in my work never ceases - an innner view of the exterior world, and its subsequent expresssion reinforces my sense of wonder, what tiny specks we are..."
In September 2002, Mary Atkinson received a commission from the University of Virginia Catholic Church, St. Thomas Aquinas. She has been commissioned to conceive and design one tabernacle and 13 stained-glass windows for a new building, to be completed in the fall of 2003. She is responsible for 14 paintings of these objects, which the Church will buy and hang in another part of the new building. An internationally known stained glass artist will make the tabernacle and windows from the paintings."
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Selection of paintings from Mary Atkinson |
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the guestbook of Mary Atkinson
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the guestbook of Mary Atkinson |
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