Individuals: Visual Artists: Mary Talbot

Artist's Statement

With the advent of photography into my life, I came to realize just how important it is to have a creative outlet, especially in unsettling times. Photography provides me with a fulfilling way to explore and share my feelings about the world within and around me. While I enjoy photographing most subjects, I am often drawn to the abstract: patterns, textures, shapes, colours stir me.

I have long been fascinated by glass – by how light interacts with glass and things placed within or behind it, and by how glass reflects and refracts light. While photographing glass I become absorbed and lose myself in a world apart. Looking through a close-up lens, I find the unexpected: everyday objects transformed beyond the familiar.

We all interpret things individually, but as we look at abstract art of any kind it is perhaps not as important to understand what a subject is as it is to simply feel its essence.

Bio

Born and raised in Bermuda, Mary attended university in New Brunswick, emigrating to Toronto in 1967. She now lives in the rolling hills north of Port Hope, Ontario.

For Mary, photography as a passion and creative vehicle began to emerge late in 1996. Enjoying many subjects, she finds photography a fulfilling medium for expressing and sharing her feelings about this world. Stirred by the patterns, shapes, colours, and textures around her, she often portrays them in abstract form.

An inspiration for Mary is Canada’s distinguished photographer Freeman Patterson. While primarily self-taught, she has studied with him and in March of 2005 was part of a two-week invitational tour to northwest South Africa under his leadership. She has also studied with André Gallant, Richard Martin, and New Zealand’s Sally Mason.

Mary conducts photography workshops, has acted as a judge for photography exhibitions and contests, and has made numerous presentations of her work to camera clubs and other groups from Kingston through to St. Catharines. She is active with the Northumberland Photography Club, and has held solo exhibitions in Bowmanville and Port Hope, and during the See Us Photography Festival and the annual Ganaraska Studio Tour.

With work accepted in juried exhibitions in the Visual Arts Centre, Bowmanville; the Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg; and the Eastern Ontario Photo Show in Picton, Mary has received several awards. Some of her images have been accepted for Showtime in Canada’s Photo Life magazine.

Art (click image to enlarge)

Email:
Website: Northumberland Photography Club