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Mary Hanson
Mary Hanson spent her childhood on a sheep farm near the dry and dusty little town of Gulargambone in the Australian outback. With few playmates and no distractions from the outside world, she absorbed the
colours and lines within the boundaries of her horizons. A theme of isolation marks her enduring relationship with that stark landscape. Primal motifs of ancient rocks and animals inhabit her work in
various incarnations and each piece is infused with a sense of colour unique to those early experiences.
Although a career in music brought her to Canada, Mary’s strength and interest in visual art eventually lead to work in film and interior design. In the 90’s she apprenticed with a decorative artist
who specialized in the traditional art of gilding. Many years were spent applying metallic leaf to ceilings, walls, frames, and furniture, before Mary was drawn back to her early love of painting.
Her affinity for the shiny metal foil began to show itself in her work as little bits of silver and gold crept into the paintings and soon took over to become by far the main ingredient.
Mary Hanson has exhibited in Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal and Sydney, Australia. Mary has an ongoing body of work at the Loft Gallery in Clarksburg, Ontario, www.loftgallery.
Abstract Landscapes
Metallic leaf and acrylic paint
Distressed, scratched, etched with acid and finished with epoxy resin
Symbols and Inscriptions
“I was gilding some columns in an old hotel in Straussburg, France, and had taken a trip to Paris were I spent 2 days in the Louvre. After being suitably overwhelmed by the collection of Masters, I found
myself lingering in the Egyptian room, captivated by the hieroglyphics engraved into some ancient stone tablets. When I returned to work on my columns I was overcome with a terrible urge to scratch in a few
symbols and letters here and there. I restrained myself of course, but while the inspiration was still burning I created some landscapes on canvas where I could add my own graffiti.
This fascination with hieroglyphics has since expanded to an interest in all forms of ancient cave paintings, pictographs, carvings, and lettering, including Enochian, a language claimed
to have been given by angels to a scribe in the late 1500’s. Likewise, I have been known to invent some of my own inscriptions when the painting calls for it.”
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