Artist's Biography
Mary Hart is a painter and printmaker from southern Maine. Born and raised in Connecticut, she moved to Maine in the 1980’s to teach and paint in the Western Mountains region where her family has spent summers for 5 generations. She now lives and works in Portland, ME. Hart earned her BA in Art and English from Dartmouth College, and her MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College where she was the recipient of the Elaine de Kooning scholarship in painting.
Dealing with issues of growth, damage, struggle and beauty, Hart’s work links the natural world with an inner narrative. Her small, sometimes miniature paintings and prints are intensely focused and detailed. Their larger purpose is the formation of visual associations that describe the artist’s place in the world and her emotional response to it. Among other locations, her work has been exhibited at Aucocisco Gallery in Portland, ME, the Portland Museum of Art, The Trustman Gallery at Simmons College in Boston, MA, and the Dunedin Fine Arts Center in Dunedin, FL. She has received grants to support her work from the Artist Resource Trust and the Maine Arts Commission, and artist residencies at Yaddo, SMCC, and La Dogana in Italy. She has been a visiting professor of art at Bowdoin, Colby and the University of Southern Maine.
Dealing with issues of growth, damage, struggle and beauty, Hart’s work links the natural world with an inner narrative. Her small, sometimes miniature paintings and prints are intensely focused and detailed. Their larger purpose is the formation of visual associations that describe the artist’s place in the world and her emotional response to it. Among other locations, her work has been exhibited at Aucocisco Gallery in Portland, ME, the Portland Museum of Art, The Trustman Gallery at Simmons College in Boston, MA, and the Dunedin Fine Arts Center in Dunedin, FL. She has received grants to support her work from the Artist Resource Trust and the Maine Arts Commission, and artist residencies at Yaddo, SMCC, and La Dogana in Italy. She has been a visiting professor of art at Bowdoin, Colby and the University of Southern Maine.
