She has spent her life in Galloway and has spent the last 27 years living in Dalbeattie. As a child, she was fairly solitary and spent a great deal of her time walking her dog, thinking and drawing. It was at that time she was absorbing the countryside around her including the light, the sounds and smells - seasonal senses which, to this day, affect her mind and mood. While attending Kirkcudbright
Academy, she gave up art in favour of music and it was only in her late 40s that she began to take art and her ability to create it more seriously, encouraged by her daughter and a friend. Mary is a strong advocate of body positivity and much of her work portrays women believing in themselves, whatever their shape, size, age or skin tone. Her other work usually includes sighthounds about which she is passionate. She marvels at their beauty, elegance and craziness and attempts to capture this in her paintings. Birds, bears, badgers, horses, foxes and hares are additionally common subject matters for her. Her favourite artists include Glasgow Boy James Guthrie, Manchester born Kirkcudbright Artist Charles Oppenheimer, British figurative artist Lucian Freud and Langholm’s sculptor and artist Elizabeth Waugh. If her work fits into any category, Mary considers it to be that of the ‘naive artist', producing simple but striking work in various media - watercolour, gouache, pencil and occasionally linocut and air-dry clay. She works from a tiny workspace in her living room and produces original paintings, prints and greetings cards.
