Interview
The
University of Chicago Magazine Interview
The
University of Chicago Magazine Peer
Review. February 2006 by Brooke E. O’Neill “Grass-roots
art”
An interview printed in The University of Chicago
Magazine in
2006 featured a discussion
of my career to date and showcased my paintings and prints. Be sure to click on
“Read More” for “
Grass-roots art: Artist Mary Ott
communes with nature one blade at a time.”
Reviews
Washington
Post Review of Metallics at
Touchstone Gallery
Excerpted
from: The Washington Post Style—Galleries February 19, 2017 by Mark Jenkins
“Metallics,” the title of Mary D. Ott’s show at Touchstone Gallery, refers to her use of gold, silver and copper paint and ink. But the subject of the Silver Spring artist’s paintings and prints is not metal but grass,
a longtime interest. Wispy blades are conjured with embroidery yarn dipped
into pigment to produce hundreds of lines, usually vertical. The resulting
image could be an unmown lawn, a wild prairie or merely an exercise
In color and form. The metallic hues give the paintings an undulating
glow that suggests daybreak or sunset. The prints lack that luminosity, but
they’re just as compelling. Ott uses string much as she does thread in the
paintings, drawing lines on a plate that’s then etched. The elegant “Wide
Grass” series renders meadows in blue and silver, and “Grass Bouquet VI”
contrasts lacy, detailed fronds in black with looser shapes in reddish brown.
This is the meadow as a minimalist Eden, a place of narrow yet infinite
variety.
Washington Post Review of Grasses at Touchstone Gallery
Excerpted
from: The Washington Post Style—Galleries April 29, 2011 by Mark Jenkins “Natural selections”
… Mary D. Ott’s prints of wild grasses …
present their subjects in manageable sizes and formats, and
emphasize craft over conceptualism.
Ott uses dried ornamental grasses as the
motifs for monotypes and screen prints that showcase color as much as form.
Some prints show wispy shapes on white backgrounds, while others frame the
grass’s fragile outlines
in reverse and are primarily blocks of
bold colors, including reds and red-browns. (Few of
these works are green.) The artist also suggests grass in etchings that are actually made with thread, creating rows of thin lines that
evoke stalks. These “wide grass’’ pieces are
sometimes printed in ways that abstract the basic design.
Ott’s prints suggest traditional Asian
art, and some of them are printed on Japanese kochi or Thai unryu paper, adding
vegetable textures to the images of vegetation. The pieces are beautifully made
and unapologetically
decorative. This work may perform merely
the gentlest of twists on its natural inspirations, but it does so with skill
and grace.
The Examiner
Review of Prints of Old Europe at Touchstone Gallery
The Examiner Best Galleries April
19, 2007 by Robin Tierney
“Essence exposed: Aging
gracefully before your eyes”
You may not want Mary D. Ott to do your portrait, but you’ll
be awed by her ability to express the gracefully aging souls of things wrought
by man and nature. Invigorating her screenprinting with oil, wax
and other media,
Ott transforms scenes from her travels into layered,
crepitating mirages.
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To inquire about the artwork, please
contact me at: marydott@earthlink.net.
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without the written permission of Mary D. Ott.
Page revised
December 2021.