Kay Hartung + Mary Marley

June 30–August 1, 2021

SoWa First Friday Art Walk: Friday, July 2, 5–8PM

In Conversation with Kay Hartung: Saturday, July 10, 4PM
RSVP to receive the virtual meeting link ➢

Transitions features the work of Kay Hartung and Mary Marley. The exhibition includes mixed media work that experiments with collage, painting and printmaking. Hartung and Marley both create pattern and textures that relate to the natural world. Each also explores how their work transitions into a different narrative—in a hidden world that exists outside of language.

PRESS RELEASE

PRICE LIST (PDF) ➢

Kay Hartung

Kay Hartung is fascinated by patterns and the process of layering. In this exhibition she works primarily with encaustic monotypes and pastel, creating prints rich in color and depth. Rope-like forms relate metaphorically to our tangled-up world and the complex issues we have faced this year. They also bear a visual relationship to plant-like forms. The layers of seemingly opposing patterns evoke conflict but also show that contrasting elements can come together to form new relationships. Much of this work has reconnected Hartung with her background in textiles and fiber.

Hartung received a BFA from Philadelphia College of Art and an MFA from Syracuse University. She has been the recipient of grants and merit awards from Somerville Arts Council, Ford Foundation and Vermont Studio Center. Hartung has taught at Endicott College, MA and Bradford College, MA. Recent exhibitions include “Upended” at Piano Craft Gallery and “Fluid States” at New Bedford Art Museum. In 2020, sixteen of her paintings were installed at the Bill and Melinda Gates Medical Research Center in Cambridge, MA. Hartung maintains a studio at ArtSpace in Maynard, MA and is a core member of Fountain Street.

Mary Marley

Mary Marley initiates her abstract works with gestural shapes, splashes, and blocks of color. She introduces thin layers of paint to let each mark, shape and color inform subsequent visual choices. Working on several paintings at a time, she rotates pieces to set up visual challenges within each. The intense addition and subtraction of brushwork, monoprint elements, and cut paper reveals both disorder and harmony at the border of play and discipline. Her process moves from freewheeling exploration toward the assertion of control. Her command of texture and pattern rewards the viewer with an uncommon sense of scale and depth. She presents structures of composition as environs of newly discovered visions.

Marley studied at The Art Institute of Boston, Tufts School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Lesley University. Her professional memberships include National Association of Women Artists, Collage Artists of America, Encaustic Art Institute, International Society of Experimental Artists, and Gallery Artists at South Shore Art Center. Recent exhibitions include “S/He” at The Gallery at Atlantic Wharf, “Extremes & In-Betweens” at Rocky Neck Art Colony, and “Behold(en)” and “Land and Sea” at South Shore Art Center. Marley works in her studio in Millis, MA and is a core member of Fountain Street.