Bio:
Mary McCann became a visual artist when Multiple Sclerosis made the art of vocal performance difficult. She turned to the visual arts for expression. She has been painting for over 25 years and is primarily self-taught with inspiration from artists such as James Lavadour and Helen O’Toole.
Her subject matter has changed through time. Current work is an emotional response to geologic forces, geologic time and the incredible beauty found in the resulting landscape.
Mary’s work has been shown throughout the Pacific Northwest and is included in private, corporate and public art collections.
Artist Statement:
Ocean floors spread. Tectonic plates move. Continents collide. Subduction thrusts up great mountains. Huge land masses slide past one another. One side drops. Another side rises. Unimaginable heat and pressure squeeze rock and rearrange crystalline structure. Volcanos erupt. Ash and molten rock spew out to reform the landscape. Millions of years pass—the Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. Transformation after transformation requiring time humans cannot comprehend.
Oddly enough I find this story comforting. There is beauty in the new structure, beauty in the rock, beauty in the fact that we are on this ever-changing Earth. And we have no say in how She decides to keep on moving.
In this body of work, I am exploring outcomes of events in the geologic story of our planet.
For the last 5 years my artistic conversation has been about Geology. In looking at the two paintings in this show you may not understand how these images align with that topic. Well, I decided that I wanted to explore forms that occur within the larger geologic picture. In starting this (what I call a side series) I began studying crystalline forms and immediately wished that I had a degree in inorganic chemistry! How elements bond, what shapes result in that bonding, and how a huge variety of color can emerge is fascinating to me.