 Mary Mead is a sculptor, printmaker, founding artist member and current Chair of Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Jct., VT.
She was graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin- Madison with a degree in Fine Arts and received a MFA degree in sculpture at Tufts University and the Boston Museum School. Mead has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows throughout the northeast including at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Dartmouth College, Barbara Krakow Gallery (Boston), Clark Gallery (Lincoln, MA), Tufts University’s Aideckman Arts Center, Milton Academy, Kimball Union Academy, Attleboro Museum, Bromfield Gallery (Boston) and at the Alliance for the Visual Arts in Lebanon, NH.
An exhibition of new drawings will be on view at the AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, NH, October 5-9 with an opening on Friday, October 8th, 5-7. An exhibition of new prints at the Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Jct., VT will open Friday, November 12th, 5-7 and remain up through November 26th. Mead lives and works in Warner, New Hampshire.
For the past three years I have worked primarily in printmaking and drawing. Sculpture Fest forced an opportunity to explore sculpture again, not one piece, but a body of work. It hasn’t been easy. In etching there are states of a plate in much the same way as there are states of a painting or a drawing. The artist is continually responding to the marks made on the canvas or paper. It is a very fluid endeavor. It is not that way in sculpture. Those intrigues takes place largely in the mind. A month of labor can produce nothing but physical effort and a sore back. In this body of work there is a transition of ideas only known and forgotten by me. The simplicity of the forms belies the effort and their history.
I chose concrete as a material because I love its austerity and its capacity to be boldly emotional despite this. I love its simplicity and that it dictates nothing to me in the process. The process itself is what gives the concrete its meaning and form, unlike many materials that impose their strong personalities.
In my work I am interested in combining recognizable objects with the properties of abstract sculpture to create objects and installations that tend to act as metaphors for human relationships. I like to shift the identities of familiar objects through materials, and by subverting normal perception through changes of scale.
-Mary Mead
August 2004 |
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