Artist shows tradition in new light

MARY Mulholland's paintings are on display at the Community Arts Centre. PICTURE / PAUL BROOKS

To view the oil paintings of Mary Mulholland is a sensory experience, a celebration of darkness and light. There's a three-dimensional quality to a subject matter often depicted in pretty watercolours and pencil drawings.
Mary paints flowers, botanicals, plants, still life, but in such a way that takes it beyond the original subject to a whole new world of colour and texture ... and light, particularly in contrast with often dark backgrounds.
Right now she's exhibiting her work at Community Arts Centre in a show entitled Twelve Paintings.
"I've been painting for a long time as a professional," says Mary, "And I've always painted this type of subject matter."
A UK native, she graduated with a Diploma of Fine & Applied Art from the Dunedin School of Art in 1972.
From bringing up a family of three children to painting full-time was a gradual move, she says, and she prefers to paint big. Most of the paintings in this exhibition, are large, involving up to a month's work each. She paints in oils in a layering process to get the luminosity and density of colour so prevalent in her paintings.
Mary has had plenty of exhibitions in the South Island, but this is her first since moving to Waverley.
"This is an introduction to what I do," she says. This is our first chance to view such a quantity of Mary's work.
Twelve Paintings, Mary's first Whanganui exhibition, is on at the Community Arts Centre until April 14.