Mary Scriven, b. 1965, was raised in the Midwestern US, where, in addition to early training in studio arts/art history, she embraced the study of languages, including Latin, Italian and French. Her education includes a BFA from the University of Kansas in 1987 and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis 1993, both with an emphasis in Sculpture. In the ensuing years she interspersed an active family life with studio work, travel, and a career as a digital artist in the fields of video game development and graphic design.
A recent transition to full-time production in her own studio has resulted in pieces that combine a continuing exploration of shadow, volume, transparency, movement and line that appeared in her earlier sculptural work, but which are now manifested within a newfound embrace of abstraction and a more narrative, expressive structure. Building on past investigations of the ideas of home and community, she finds herself drawn to the illusory aspects of memory as it relates to the concept of home.
I currently find myself drawn to the illusory aspects of memory as it relates to the emotional concept of home. As we age, we discover that what we hold onto as certain immutable memory cannot always be trusted, and this realization can be destabilizing, especially when we discover that others do not agree with our interpretation of shared past experiences. What is real, what is sentiment, what is simply a narrative crutch, a series of rationalizations which allow us to proceed with our existence with sanity intact. Home in this exploration is shorthand for what centers us, both externally and internally. When our ‘home’ is no longer familiar, available or secure, all can quickly become quicksand around us, each step uncertain and the world newly unfamiliar. In my exploration of these questions, I have employed mark making and surface manipulation to explore layers, negative and positive space, shadowing both rendered in 2 dimensions and in real space as a result of the interaction of materials in the piece. Some work also incorporate materials with a personal narrative significance to me, including recycled fragments of large scale watercolor paintings produced in my first studio decades ago. These fragments are tangible references to what I hold in my memory, from a creative life that is at once deeply familiar, and with the passage of time, completely alien. By deconstructing these personal art objects, tangible evidence of former selves, I want to strip them of their preciousness—not deny the past, but find ways to celebrate it, and examine it with a fresh and honest eye.