Press
My work is featured in Architectural Digest in their stunning profile on Sean Brock’s new restaurant June, designed by Katie Vance and the team at Powell Architecture.
“There are two major themes behind the art I’ve chosen in Audrey: how we present it and why. One is creating a museum-like atmosphere in the layout and size of the collection. I enjoy and want to encourage that ‘discovery’ feeling that you experience in a museum setting. Secondly, the art itself is one of the biggest inspirations behind the food.”
— Sean Brock for Architectural Digest
My work got a mention in Time Out Magazine as they covered the opening of Sean Brock’s restaurants Audrey/June:
“The jaw-droppingly beautiful interior feels like a warm, welcoming museum, and guests are encouraged to discover what's on display – from Mary Mooney's ethereal abstracts and a vast array of folk art to Brock's own photography. The chef explains that the restaurant's food is inspired by the art on the walls.”
“…Some of her works include exclamations such as “NO”, “STOP”, or “F***” on the primary layer of her painting. She explains her subtle inclusion of words: “I like that they are hidden. The gold writing can be a visual element, but then there is also my presence, emphasizing my process of physically working behind a barrier building compositions with layers of acrylic paint.” The thought of coming up to the limit and working against it, for Mooney, is akin to the glass ceiling so many women seek to shatter.
In Selective Visibility for example, Mooney wrote the word “NO” but anyone seeing the painting would read “ON.” The relationship between the two vastly different terms made of the same two letters opens room for interpretation. From the artist’s side the expressively written word appears as a declaration, the impulse to begin a work about societal pressure regarding feminine beauty. From the outside “ON” could be read as a call to engage in continuous activity or whatever associations the viewer may have with the word.
Advertisements for beauty products claiming things like light and radiance have created persistent visual tropes of femininity. Mooney’s titles communicate her concerns with the commodification of beauty. They include terms that call out ideals of physical appearance such as Radiant Light and also statements associated with struggle against dominant culture such as Subtle Battles, The Only Way Out Is Through, and Convenient Ignorance.”
—Sara Burd For Nashville Arts
“At first glance, Mary Mooney's work appears softly feminine and almost saccharine sweet, with swirls of pastel colors and flecks of shimmering gold dreamily blended into soothing abstracts. But the art, much like the artist herself, has a quiet strength and thoughtful depth simmering just beneath the surface. In her Denied Realities collection, the streaks of gold are the remnant of strong language and expressions — ranging from words like "truth" or "no" to profanities — written on glass that melt into obscurity once mixed with the delicate acrylics in shades of pink, peach, blue and purple. "Using beauty to obscure expression mimics the way I feel female experiences are minimized by societal expectations," Mary says.
The work, both captivating and thought-provoking, is created using an equally mesmerizing and complex process. Since Mary's paintings are created on acrylic glass, they're essentially painted in reverse. The bottom layer of the painting is what's visible to the viewer on the other side of the glass, requiring Mary to rely on a mirror to reflect the front of the glass while she paints on the back, constantly cutting in strokes of color to add depth and texture to the painting. Due to the nature of this medium, Mary doesn't have the luxury of working on pieces over the course of days, weeks or months. There's a finite time period — essentially the time it takes for these layers of paint to dry — during which she must complete her paintings, making these stunning finished works even more impressive.”
—Nancy Floyd for NFocus Magazine
“It was several months after our introduction, as we were becoming friends, that I saw some of Mary’s large-scale works for the first time. They’re beautiful – like neon clouds in a particularly glorious sunset. For her most recent show, Denied Realities, she depended on a color palette that was decidedly feminine, and unapologetically retro. In her program notes, Mary referred to it as “’80s Rococo”: think bright pink, baby blue, pale lavender, neon orange and flashes of gold. Some of the paintings in the show reminded me of the colorful residue that the Maybelline eyeshadow kits I bought in high school would leave when they broke and crumbled in the bottom of my makeup bag. Totally ’80s, indeed.
I attended Mary’s artist’s talk during the show’s run, and discovered that her paintings brought up different ’80s memories for other women. One said they made her think of Madonna circa her “Material Girl” days, while another was reminded of the Diane Keaton fish-out-of-water movie Baby Boom. During our interview for this piece, Mary herself admitted to being inspired by Reagan-era MTV.
However, while the eyeshadow colors of Mary’s paintings may be beautiful, with names like “Subtle Battles,” “The Only Way Out is Through,” and “Convenient Ignorance,” they’re much more than skin deep.
At the gallery talk, Mary spoke very openly with the moderator, her friend, the art historian and writer Sara Lee Burd, about groping incident she endured two years ago. Ultimately, the time Mary spent processing the event — talking with her husband and reading feminist literature (The Beauty Myth, The Gender Knot, A Brief History of Misogyny, et al) — provided the psychological framework and overall motivation she needed to produce Denied Realities, an exhibit that, she says, "explores how women’s expected societal roles subvert their actual experiences."
—Libby Callaway for the Callaway Report
What have you learned about yourself as an artist? I’ve learned the common threads between my painting process and other bilateral healing modalities like EMDR and certain art therapies. I’ve always used my creative time to process, so to have that sort of neurologically legitimized is very cool to me.
—In Conversation with Nancy Floyd, NFOCUS
“After making Nashville her permanent residency, the artist felt a sudden urge to push her creative boundaries. Around the same time, she became obsessed with collective experiences—fascinated by the idea that 12 sets of eyes could see a composition a dozen different ways. In her abstract art, Mooney hyper-concentrates on texture, color and why a brushstroke looks a certain way.”