Mary Mulderry MacIsaac

Mary Mulderry MacIsaac
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

STATEMENT

After sustaining injuries and taking time off work, I shifted my focus toward collage as a means of therapeutic expression and found myself producing more regularly than ever.

In my work, I’m drawn to solving problems that I create myself. As a medium collage presents unlimited possibilities and the challenge of having to commit to gluing things down is a lesson in decisiveness. Assembling, reassembling, discerning between what to reveal or edit out is a corner I back myself into regularly. The result is my practice.

I started creating my analog collages with paper, printed media and glue. More recently, I used anything from cardboard, acrylic paint, wood, books, natural materials. There is often an overlap between analog and digital practices for me, as well as the incorporation of moving animation, sometimes a mix of all three.

My process varies depending on where I am creating, at my home studio, on the road, or community art program workshops. What informs my artistic process most are the confines of external limitations (like location, a small scanner, access to media, tools) and internal limitations (mental, physical and emotional health). These variables breed an environment that forces me to create as a means to heal. Through a process of creative problem-solving, a better sense of self emerges. Often an underlying issue I’m experiencing is revealed to me after I have completed a piece. Themes of nostalgia, iconography, subversion, architecture, home, love and pain are present in my work.

BIO

I am a Montreal-based artist and I have been developing a practice in illustration, graphic design and collage since graduating from Concordia’s Film Studies Program in 2013. In 2019, I had the pleasure of being a featured artist at Galerie Marc Gosselin. My exhibition “Ways of Dealing” was a sample collection of original and printed collage works created between 2018 and 2019. Following this solo exhibition, I was asked back at Galerie Marc Gosselin, once for “Decouper le Paysage” in November 2019 and again for “Nuit Blanche: Vert” in February 2020.

I have recently finished exhibiting 4 different pieces of artwork at Carrefour Culturel Paul-Mederic in the beautiful Charlevoix village of Baie-Saint-Paul. The show was backed by Festival Cuisine, Cinéma et Confidences, and featured multiple contemporary artists coming together to create a sort of symbolic gathering of a bountiful harvest, so heavy it has broken a dinner table.

Last year two of my collage pieces were also published in a contemporary magazine called Femlu, featuring female artists working and living in Quebec, and this year I will be published in a new digital magazine called Bellyache, based out of Montreal, a collection of international contributors ranging from writers to chefs to artists, all sharing a piece of their process from the year of 2020.

ARTIST CONTACT

[click to email]
marymulderryart.com

IMAGES