JULIE HELLER GALLERIES

Mary Walker, a painter and printmaker who exhibits regularly in the Southeast as well as nationally and internationally, lives on Johns Island outside of Charleston, SC. She is a winner of numerous regional grants and residencies such as the Griffith Award, several South Carolina Artist Commission grants, several Lowcountry Quarterly Artist Grants, a Margo Gelb Dune Shack Residency in Provincetown, MA, two residencies at the Lillian Smith Creative Arts Center in Clayton, GA, and an Artist-in-Residency at the Bascom Center for the Arts in Highlands, NC. 

 

Walker has worked independently in several print studios including the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in NYC, Print Studio South in Charleston, SC, Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy, Santa Reparta in Florence, Italy, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Spirit Square in Charlotte, NC, Castle Hill in Truro, MA, New Grounds Print Studio in Albuquerque, NM, and Studio Due on Johns Island, SC.

 

“As a narrative artist, I am fascinated by people – our joys and sorrows, strengths and weaknesses. Using the figure, my goal is to inject human comedy and tragedy into my work. My source or starting place for the work is not generally visual, rather an idea, a germ of an idea, or a theme: then I begin a search for meaning through the language of painting. My first Provincetown paintings were about the shimmering light of the sea, sand, and sky in conjunction with the tumble of rooftops. Gradually I have started inserting more and more figurative elements into these paintings as I have become more familiar with the town and the colorful inhabitants who make Provincetown such an artistic Mecca.”

- Mary Walker