About Mary Ahern
For decades, I have worked creatively as a multi-disciplinary artist working with traditional and digital media, video, installation, writing and garden design. These mediums have threaded themselves throughout my life, coming and going, only to return again as my incessant need for experimentation and expanding areas of inquiry invite new challenges.
The studio for me is wherever I create, whether standing at my easel, sitting at my desktop, or bending in my garden. With degrees in Fine Arts and also in Horticulture, nature and particularly the garden is my muse.
The garden I designed and have maintained for over 35 years, has taught me profound lessons about survival, growth, and renewal. These themes naturally weave themselves into my artwork. Each flower represents a journey—from seed to bloom to seed again. In this cycle, I find powerful symbolism that reflects our own human experiences. We too must weather storms, reach for light, and trust in our capacity to bloom again after difficult seasons.
I don’t offer answers so much as an invitation to slow down, to look closely, to recognize our own cycles of dormancy and bloom in the multi-faceted work I create. If my garden has taught me anything, it’s that nothing stays one thing for very long. Neither do I.
My work has been featured in galleries across the region and in publications including Newsday, Sanctuary and Bold Journey. I invite you to explore the artwork, read about my process, or wander through the visual stories I’ve gathered over a lifetime of tending garden, canvas, and screen.
…mary
Galleries and Organizations that feature my work:
Ceres Gallery: I am represented by Ceres Gallery, a landmark feminist art institution founded in 1984 and located in Chelsea’s premier gallery district at 547 West 27th Street, New York City. Dedicated to elevating women artists for over four decades, Ceres is one of the most respected alternative exhibition spaces in the New York art world.
Artsy: My work is also featured on Artsy, the world’s leading online art marketplace, where over 3 million collectors and enthusiasts from 190+ countries discover and acquire art. Artsy connects the most respected galleries, auction houses, and artists globally, making it one of the most prestigious and far-reaching platforms in the contemporary art world.
Bloomberg Connects: My work is also featured on Bloomberg Connects, a free app offering access to exhibitions and artists at over 1,500 museums and cultural organizations worldwide. View my Artist listing on Bloomberg Connects
Writing is a big part of my creative output.
My short, medium, and longer articles are published on a variety of different platforms.
Studio Glimpses: A daily journal following the life of a working artist, the creative breakthroughs, the obstacles, the flights of fancy, and the quiet, unglamorous hours that all go into making art. Photos and reflections document each day in the studio, offering an honest, unfiltered look at art in progress.
Naturally Inspired: A bi-weekly Substack column exploring the deep connections between the natural world, the garden, and the creative life. Each essay weaves together observations from life, influences, inspiration, and creativity, which continually feed and shape artistic vision.
Sanctuary Magazine: A column for longer, more contemplative essays that explore the intersections of art, identity, and the creative journey. These pieces take a wider view, examining what it means to live as an artist and how the practices of painting, gardening, and writing inform and sustain one another.
Learn more about my artistic philosophy in my Artist’s Statement below.
Click here to read my full Biography or
Click here for my Artist Resume
Artist Statement
My art, deeply rooted in symbolism, reflects the interconnectedness and balance within both the microcosm of my garden and the macrocosm of the cosmos. Embedded in these artworks are the stirrings of conversation regarding these issues.
Drawing inspiration from the vibrant community of life in my garden, my flowers invite universal questions of existence and purpose in their quest for survival, eventual senescence, and rebirth.
The identifiable floral Images I create are glazed and intertwined with my abstract underpaintings inspired by the recent awe-inspiring visuals of the universe. By recognizing the delicate balance required for both terrestrial and celestial ecosystems to thrive, I am inspired to provide a visual context for understanding the essential balance necessary for life’s harmony.
Employing imagery that balances both abstraction and realism, I mirror the delicate equilibrium needed for universal survival. The transparent glazes I layer between garden and galaxy become a kind of visual dialogue, each layer distinct, yet inseparable from what surrounds it. A fitting metaphor for the open exchange, I believe, is essential to our collective survival.
My artistic process involves employing unique techniques that I have continued to refine over the course of 50 years. Through the years of experimentation and refinement, I have developed a distinctive approach to making art that reflects my artistic vision and also my philosophy.