MARY DONLAN’S MEADOWS

MARY DONLAN’S MEADOWS (MDM)

Found landscapes or the seemingly un-built space, have a strong(er) grip on where our imagination resides. Not only are they tenants in good standing but they are guides to other aesthetic possibilities. They are unlike the topiary hedge.

This is due to the fact that the aesthetic quotients are not contrived or formulaic; rather they are inherently layered, composed, harmonized…the ever warm hug of chance. To locate them is personal, an instinct that if innate, is beyond perception, more inception.

Mary Donlan finds and records these places. She describes them as, “wild, uncurated spaces which have an ethereal beauty…nature left alone and allowed to express freely…wild beauty is transitory, changing every day”. Indeed, the meadows she captures, often beside secondary highways and abandoned lots, blend the urban and rural, outlining the constant tug-of-war. MDM finds the fleeting, the breath…the space between things. An ‘is it there’ feel…. requiring us to peer not just look.

Her work continues the established traditions of both Pictorialsm and Straight Photography found within the pillars of modernist photographic expression. Her background of study in Fine Arts, Sociology and Library Sciences seem to have mapped her visual and conceptual interests, blending these traditions with her studies.

In the end, as a viewer what we do know, is that MDM are reminders to reconsider what may be seen, but not observed. Not a puzzle to be solved but an epiphany of the overlooked…and…when realized, pure joy.