Mary Pearson: An Artistic Partnership With Nature

In Mary Pearson’s photographs, nature is more than subject matter—it is a partner in the creation of each picture. “I allow the landscape a ‘voice’,” she says. “We are collaborators in the process of image-making.” Shooting on film, she has a strong interest both in capturing the appearance of the natural world and in the physical nature of film itself. In some photographs, she brings film and the environment together to an unusually high degree, actually burying negatives in soil for several weeks before exhuming and printing them. The resulting images are at once an artifact of nature, carrying the traces of decay and decomposition, and a product of the artist’s vision.

But even in her more conventionally produced images, Pearson exhibits a strong connection with the world around her, with a sharp eye for the textures of sky, sea and land, as well as a keen feeling for how light creates moods and transforms scenes. With a pristine, balanced sense of composition, she magnifies nature’s innate qualities, while also leaving the space to let nature speak for itself.     

Pearson lives and works in Devon in the United Kingdom and is a Lecturer of Photography at Weston College in Somerset.

Exhibition Dates: November 8, 2016 – November 30, 2016

Reception: Thursday November 10, 2016, 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Gallery Hours: Tues-Sat 11-6

Gallery Location: 530 West 25th St, Chelsea, New York

Event URL: http://www.agora-gallery.com/artistpage/Mary_Pearson.aspx

Featured Artists:

Illumination: An Exhibition of Fine Art Photography

Cynthia Chace Gray  |  Florian Mueller  |  Iryna Brown  |  Bree Castillau  |  Mary Pearson  |  Kathleen Messmer  |  Steven Anggrek  |  Antonio Biagiotti

About the Exhibition

The modern photographer in Illumination: An Exhibition of Fine Art Photography

Illumination: An Exhibition of Fine Art Photography opens this November at Agora Gallery. The exhibition spotlights eight premier contemporary photographers who play with visual expectations and technical limitations. Three artists take on the landscape format: there are horizons filtered through layers of atmospheric gauze, otherworldly plains shot in high detail, and cityscapes framed as endless, depthless fields of pure pattern. In black-and-white and color, the viewer is offered visions of the world as yawning or claustrophobic, logical or chaotic, dreamy or cold. Alongside these are the work of an accomplished animal photographer who creates psychological portraits with her naturalistic works. Another featured photographer builds her own still life compositions, but subverts their classical realism for her unique narrative aims, and yet the quiet dreamlike works of another photographer bring a unique balance to the collection. Rounding out the exhibition are two abstract artists who use their technical prowess and historical knowledge of process to create photographs of pure light and pattern. Though the interests run far and wide among these artists, the show is an unambiguous message of modernity.