in the Education Wing from september 16 - November 8

Artist’s Statement

For 22 years I have been inspired by the 4 acres I live on in rural Kansas. There, I have built a small kind of haven, a natural refuge, a stark contrast from the surrounding huge fields of industrial agriculture, thousands of acres of monoculture. This relatively small acreage holds much diversity of plants, insects, and birds. I have become very aware of their cycles of life.

Building gardens for grasses and flowers, shrubs, vegetables and trees and walking daily within them has become an essential way for me to care and connect. I walk in order to see and understand.

The constant flux of the natural world is reflected in my studio practice as I try to grasp and celebrate the extraordinary buzz within the layers of life found here. Studio and garden environments have combined, becoming my center. Whilst not a collaborative artist in a conventional sense; I have a vital collaboration with this piece of land.

Painting concretizes my experience. Through paint I want to summon the frenzy of the intertwining of soil, plants, insects and weather, to feel the rush of life, and with it the mystery of the infinite connectedness of everything.

In the painting “Zenith” I am addressing the ecstatic, a particular moment experienced within the arc of life cycles. A beauty found within the lush fecundity of summer containing precariousness, the imminent decline of fall.

The newer work picks up the idea of celebrating the ecstatic garden of art history. For a long time, I have been interested in the energy and dynamics used in the depiction of plants across many Asian cultures.

Here I have deliberately adapted, and inserted passages of plant and landscape representation and pattern that originated in Indian, Tibetan and Chinese decorative arts: Indian textiles seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, visual events found across a vast Chinese Urn in the Denver Museum, and the minute decoration on the border of a Tibetan painting seen in the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City.

These images embodied in centuries old work, have given me pause: A humbling realization of the acuity, understanding, respect and deep love these ancient cultures brought to their participation with the natural world.

Physically building these passages in the paintings has made me look at the natural world and my own garden with a different set of eyes. An expanded seeing has happened, where recognizing and locating similarities and differences; rhymes, and connections within the natural world have unfolded. I have been given something far larger to add to my own observations.

Now this imagery is speaking in conjunction with the garden outside my door.

A. Mary Kay

A. Mary Kay lives and paints in rural Lindsborg, Kansas. She was born in London England, and has lived in the USA for 30 years. She received a BA Honors in Fine Art from Bath Academy of Art UK, an MA from Goldsmiths College London University UK, and an MFA in Painting from Yale University. Her web site is: marykaypainting.com

Recently her work was included in 2019- 20 Rural/Urban Invitational II at The Volland Store in Volland Kansas, and in 2018 Big Botany Spencer Museum Kansas University, Lawrence KS.

She was selected as one of three artists to represent Kansas in 2014 for the exhibition State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now, at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Bentonville. Later Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art toured a show of works from State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now, where the destinations were Mint Museum Charlotte NC, Dixon Gallery and garden Memphis TN, and The Jepson Center Telfair Museums Savannah GA.

Her work is in the collection of: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville AR Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas University Lawrence KS Business School Art Collection, Kansas University Lawrence KS Kansas City Collection, Kansas City MO Emprise Bank Art Collection, Wichita KS Binney and Smith Corporate Art Collection, Easton PA Private Collections