We took a venture out of the gallery and into the studio of represented artist, Mary Conrad. Set in the outskirts of San Francisco, with a view of the bay, Conrad's studio is an inspiring space for experimentation. With her first solo show approaching at Michael Rosenthal Gallery (October 17th - November 17th), Conrad shared works in progress with us as she spoke about her interest in social infrastructure, titling her upcoming show Lapidary Terrarium.

In her sunlit space, she spoke to us of symbols: the car, the road, language, hieroglyphics, alphabets, currency, punctuation, and packaging. Calling attention to a system and how impressions are mediated by such symbols. The traffic cone is one such symbol, seen frequently in her works in progress, significant initially because of its distinct color. In her poetic way, Mary described how her largest installation piece represents a closed system, and how such closed systems mirror our own realities and the environments we inhabit.

Inspired by Joseph Cornell, Sarah Sze, Eva Hesse, and Robert Rauschenberg, Mary described her work in terms of cultural anthropology. She described a manmade world with systems put in place since colonization, her commentary on these systems interweaving with notions of math, language, biology, and political science. Such things mediate her reality, seemingly effortlessly, through various media including installations with plastic, neon, and wood, to paintings and works on paper.

We loved getting insight into Mary Conrad’s process driven work -- balanced by her poetic use of pictorial space. We look forward to her solo show this Fall; clean, spare, concise, and artfully explored; pieces that interact with each other within a palette of orange, purple and green. Certain to be visually stunning and equally compelling!

Links
Mary Conrad