'We Play the Fool' Painting

Untied to the narrative of the day-to-day and freed from the explicitness of daily life, painting is the perfect outlet for the unconscious. I first started painting because I felt a need to pry open the door that kept locked in my innermost feelings; I wanted to see what would be released. When painting I borrow images that I have collected from the public domain as the dreaming mind clutches at symbols on which to cloak its internal dramas. Collectively the subject of my work revolves around a number of circulating themes including celebrity, technology, heroism, theatre, heartache, unrequited love, dreams and desire. I enjoy searching for and using images from the world of fashion and like to play with modern concepts of beauty. Informed by Surrealism and Neo-Expressionism, my work is personal and presents the possibility of painting as a kind of cool catharsis - a means by which to unburden oneself of things unknown and locked inside. When making the work I try to deny myself a state of consciousness about what I am doing and why I am doing it so that all the decisions in the artistic execution rest in pure intuition. I often use as a starting point photographic images from contemporary magazines or from the internet and enjoy collaging disparate images together so as to suggest a new narrative. I like to work quickly so that my paintings have a sense of immediacy. The biggest challenge of painting, for me, is to paint in a direct manner, without hesitation so that the action is not hindered by thought. Otherwise, the physical aspects of painting are unimportant to me. I want the work only to impart a quality of being. Every line must speak every mark must have content and give meaning to the overall piece. Born in England, Mary Nicholson studied Painting in London and graduated with a BA from Chelsea College of Art in 1992 and an MFA from Hunter College, NY in 1995. Her group exhibitions include Governors Island Art Fair, NY; 'Up Aginst It', Munch Gallery NY; 'Materialism', Real Fine Arts Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; 'Love for Sale', NY Art Book Fare, P.S.1, Queens, NY; Troop48 NYC, John Connelly Presents, NY and The Zine Unbound: Kults, Werewolves and Sarcastic Hippies, Yerber Buena Center for the Arts, CA. A solo exhibition of her work, "Pause, was held at Autoversion, Ltd in NY in 2007