Mary Wagner

The framing option for this RUN includes a 1 inch white wood frame with UV-glass foam core backing and ready to hang hardware.

"'Spectrum' is about the hope of finding common ground from polarities ... it's a work of contrasts and opposites. It’s also me making jest of my usual, uptight drawing method ... it’s me metaphorically throwing paint at myself. The ink blot thing is ongoing and fairly new. I’m currently working on canvas iterations and introducing other chance methods of paint application with prescribed color palettes. I see this investigation of opposing drawing styles continuing for some time.

The original “Spectrum” drawing is on bristol board that’s been folded in half. The underlying drawing is black ballpoint, drawn with the help of my drawing gears which I design and make. Acrylic ink is used for the color overlaying that drawing. Symmetry achieved through folding the page... thanks Dr. Rorschach! A dose of spontaneity. An abandonment of control. Chance and randomosity embraced. The bulk of my work is planned, practiced and patient."  - Mary Wagner

ABOUT THE ARTIST:  At the quantum level, Mary Wagner’s drawings are simple, fluid, curvilinear paths arching around some absent center like an interstellar object flirting about a gravity well. The lines warm and complicate through repetition. Patterns pile on top of each other. The slim edge of the pen takes on form and depth like cotton candy wisps or subatomic particles. Value and texture suggest dimension and movement. These things coax and combine into a sort of "non-subject" or subjective subject matter... inviting viewers to project themselves. They are exercises in minimal purity, or expressions of chaos and order. They are complicated networks or psychedelic dreamscapes. Both pretty eye candy and quasi-sciencey, mathiness.

Wagner's drawings are mediated by machines she herself makes. Relatively simple machines... more akin to the inclined plane or the lever-and-fulcrum than to the personal digital computer. The meshing teeth of gears guide her pen, wheels inside of wheels. Spinning. In our universe everything spins. From the mundane circling of water exiting a drain, to the majestic revolution of our spiraling galaxy, to the minute play of positives and negatives at the core of matter itself. In this way Wagner’s drawing emulate and replicate the mechanics of the universe. Everything revolves around a something which is a nothing.

Find more from Mary Wagner at marywagner.com

Follow Mary on Instagram @marywagnerinc

At the quantum level, Mary Wagner’s drawings are simple, fluid, curvilinear paths arching around some absent center like an interstellar object flirting about a gravity well. The lines warm and complicate through repetition. Patterns pile on top of each other. The slim edge of the pen takes on form and depth like cotton candy wisps or subatomic particles. Value and texture suggest dimension and movement. These things coax and combine into a sort of "non-subject" or subjective subject matter... inviting viewers to project themselves. They are exercises in minimal purity, or expressions of chaos and order. They are complicated networks or psychedelic dreamscapes. Both pretty eye candy and quasi-sciencey, mathiness.

Wagner's drawings are mediated by machines she herself makes. Relatively simple machines... more akin to the inclined plane or the lever-and-fulcrum than to the personal digital computer. The meshing teeth of gears guide her pen, wheels inside of wheels. Spinning. In our universe everything spins. From the mundane circling of water exiting a drain, to the majestic revolution of our spiraling galaxy, to the minute play of positives and negatives at the core of matter itself. In this way Wagner’s drawing emulate and replicate the mechanics of the universe. Everything revolves around a something which is a nothing.