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Mary O’Malley  Beverly, MA


* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.


About Mary


My work begins with a fascination with nature and natural processes in all its complexity and richness. My most recent body of work consists of tightly rendered ink drawings on paper, mostly using metallic inks on velvety black paper. This minimum palette helps to emphasize the complex detail and ornate patterning of the drawing. In the spirit of outsider and visionary artists, each mark is hand drawn using fine-point pens. I draw inspiration from the unpredictable and wild side of nature, combined with a hybrid of images from many sources- botanical illustration, natural and biomorphic forms, microscopic scientific imagery, ancient and modern decorative arts, architecture, and textile patterns. Flora and fauna, obsessive patterning and a Baroque sensibility come together to create a new world of hybrid chandeliers, curious bouquets, dense gardens and imagined landscapes. They exist somewhere between the wild irrationality of nature and the rigorous orderliness of lace patterns. I am interested in a beauty that is blatantly sensuous, unapologetically pretty, boldly decorative, and aggressively feminine. These pieces embody the spirit of a gaudy chandelier dripping with crystals and lights, a blinding, ridiculous beauty that attracts and repels.


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Mary appears in the following Top 10 lists


'Massachusetts'

'2010'


10 of 22 reactions displayed


"This is awesome artwork. I spend most weekends out in nature enjoying all of it's trippy chaotic patterns layered on top one another, and I have to say you capture the magic in a more high contrast deliberate way. Almost like, look you idiots, nature is beautiful. Keep doing what you do."

"Nice work! This would fit great with the work of J.T. Burke."

"as if they grew on their own"

"Lovely. From experience, I know that pen and ink is not a forgiving media. You're execution is masterful. Beautiful work."

"how decorative."

"the depth of mirro, just wonderful"

"Dear Mary O, Obviously highly-skilled. Yet if I have to read a lot of artist's-intention commentary, plus detail on materials used, what is being depicted, et al, then I'm not 'getting it,' in and of itself. For me this makes the work I see here Non-Art, but rather (say) Illustrated Writing. Therefore the text-plus-picture would be more effective (in my opinion) if they were one, without the necessity of a supportive description.I must be looking for 'warmth' too because I don't feel much here. I don't mean to be offensive and harsh, just truthful, just to let you know how your work impacts me."

"The first thing I thought of in viewing your work was frost patterns on a window. Fine work, homegirl!"

"so beautiful"

"I agree with Thea. Almost childlike but severely complex."


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