Mary Gillett

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The language of traditional etching, its tactile immediacy and its, often thrilling, unpredictability has unique eloquence. Interweaving this alchemical process with layers and symbols inherent in the landscape feels to Mary Gillett the most robust way of exploring a world of complex and overwhelming emotions, both personal and universal.

A recent walk around Killarney Lake on Bowen Island, BC prompted an array of visceral and stirring responses. Back in her UK studio, armed with a selection of iPhone photos and a head full of symbols, Mary worked through numerous proofs and stages. At each iteration, the responses carved out deeper meanings as the organic relationship between the plates and their outcomes became more intense.

Confident in the fact that her work communicates on an instinctive level, Mary eschews in-depth explanations. However, the words and phrases that follow hint at how she found the titles in response to the walk and to the pieces that resulted.

Beauty in the air, melancholy everywhere, peace
stillness, an aftermath, organ flutes, a fugue
of impressions, grand thoughts.

How come those tree trunks
still stand, branches stubbed out, limbs
still afloat? Totems. The aftermath
cruel, voracious.

Spikes, spears, lances, nothing
changes. Displacement, dispossession.
Flight, flood, fire. The aftermath
loss of identity, migration. Fugue state.

Those poles, piercing clouds,
flues, shrieking for air, grim prescience.

“We are Making a New World”
(The etchings prompted comments about Paul Nash from fellow printmakers at Mary’s studio. Though unintended, this 1918 painting came to mind.)

Mary’s work has been described as conveying “powerful, uncompromising landscapes” pervaded by a “stern lyricism which speaks beyond place and season”. Dartmoor, where she grew up, is in her being but the North Cornwall coastline, the Scottish Highlands, and the seas and mountains of British Columbia have equal potency for her.
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The language of traditional etching, its tactile immediacy and its, often thrilling, unpredictability has unique eloquence. Interweaving this alchemical process with layers and symbols inherent in the landscape feels to Mary Gillett the most robust way of exploring a world of complex and overwhelming emotions, both personal and universal.

A recent walk around Killarney Lake on Bowen Island, BC prompted an array of visceral and stirring responses. Back in her UK studio, armed with a selection of iPhone photos and a head full of symbols, Mary worked through numerous proofs and stages. At each iteration, the responses carved out deeper meanings as the organic relationship between the plates and their outcomes became more intense.

Confident in the fact that her work communicates on an instinctive level, Mary eschews in-depth explanations. However, the words and phrases that follow hint at how she found the titles in response to the walk and to the pieces that resulted.

Beauty in the air, melancholy everywhere, peace
stillness, an aftermath, organ flutes, a fugue
of impressions, grand thoughts.

How come those tree trunks
still stand, branches stubbed out, limbs
still afloat? Totems. The aftermath
cruel, voracious.

Spikes, spears, lances, nothing
changes. Displacement, dispossession.
Flight, flood, fire. The aftermath
loss of identity, migration. Fugue state.

Those poles, piercing clouds,
flues, shrieking for air, grim prescience.

“We are Making a New World”
(The etchings prompted comments about Paul Nash from fellow printmakers at Mary’s studio. Though unintended, this 1918 painting came to mind.)

Mary’s work has been described as conveying “powerful, uncompromising landscapes” pervaded by a “stern lyricism which speaks beyond place and season”. Dartmoor, where she grew up, is in her being but the North Cornwall coastline, the Scottish Highlands, and the seas and mountains of British Columbia have equal potency for her.
The language of traditional etching, its tactile immediacy and its, often thrilling, unpredictability has unique eloquence. Interweaving this alchemical process with layers and symbols inherent in the landscape feels to Mary Gillett the most robust way of exploring a world of complex and overwhelming emotions, both personal and universal.

A recent walk around Killarney Lake on Bowen Island, BC prompted an array of visceral and stirring responses. Back in her UK studio, armed with a selection of iPhone photos and a head full of symbols, Mary worked through numerous proofs and stages. At each iteration, the responses carved out deeper meanings as the organic relationship between the plates and their outcomes became more intense.

Confident in the fact that her work communicates on an instinctive level, Mary eschews in-depth explanations. However, the words and phrases that follow hint at how she found the titles in response to the walk and to the pieces that resulted.

Beauty in the air, melancholy everywhere, peace
stillness, an aftermath, organ flutes, a fugue
of impressions, grand thoughts.

How come those tree trunks
still stand, branches stubbed out, limbs
still afloat? Totems. The aftermath
cruel, voracious.

Spikes, spears, lances, nothing
changes. Displacement, dispossession.
Flight, flood, fire. The aftermath
loss of identity, migration. Fugue state.

Those poles, piercing clouds,
flues, shrieking for air, grim prescience.

“We are Making a New World”
(The etchings prompted comments about Paul Nash from fellow printmakers at Mary’s studio. Though unintended, this 1918 painting came to mind.)

Mary’s work has been described as conveying “powerful, uncompromising landscapes” pervaded by a “stern lyricism which speaks beyond place and season”. Dartmoor, where she grew up, is in her being but the North Cornwall coastline, the Scottish Highlands, and the seas and mountains of British Columbia have equal potency for her.
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