A consideration of the physical environments in which I live and work, Driftless Reveries responds to the physical topography of Central Minnesota and South-Central Wisconsin, and the built environment of Kumasi, Ghana, where I spend several months each year. This work celebrates the spiritual and cultural tenor specific to each place, while acknowledging the influence each has brought to my own particular artistic vision.
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Made from handmade flax and linen papers, linen cloth, and other materials that carry a variety of surface qualities, with these constructed paintings I explore, among other things, the intrinsic properties of handmade paper.
“Mary Hark’s paintings combine handmade papers and cloth into an intricate ground, stitched together with thread and built up into a complex stratigraphy with paint, wax, textile dyes, inks, and pencil marks. Large in scale, they appear both delicate and resilient. Their layered surfaces invoke the patina of time: the slow, subtle erosion of a well-thumbed page, the careless beauty of mended clothing, the evocative fissures in an old painted wall. Hark’s dedicated study of both paper and textile techniques lends her surfaces a particular depth. She crosses traditional boundaries with knowledge and respect, creating a rich and surprising body of mixed-media work.”
—Jody Clowes, Director, Wisconsin Academy James Watrous Gallery