Welcome to My World. Here you’ll find updates on present, and future exhibitions, other sites that feature my work. Scroll down to see where my work is currently on view and where you can visit upcoming solo and group shows.
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Have a great day!
…mary
A Multi-Disciplinary Exhibition
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 5, 6:00–8:00 PM
Meet the Artist Reception: Saturday, November 7, 1:00–3:00 PM
Closing Reception: Saturday, November 28, 1:00–3:00 PM
547 West 27th St
Suite 201
New York, NY 10001
Website: CeresGallery.org
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 12 pm – 6 pm
Welcome. When life gets loud, I go to my garden. Looking closely at a single flower brings me back to balance. This exhibition brings that practice indoors, and I invite you to come slow down with me.
The show includes large oil paintings of magnified flowers from my Northport garden, layered over images of the galaxy. There are also digital works made from live flowers captured on a scanner. At its center is A Space for Centering, an immersive room of flower video, sound, living plants, and water. Step inside, put on the headphones, and take a few quiet minutes for yourself.
Centering in the Midst of Chaos brings together oil paintings, digital artwork, and an immersive installation by Mary Ahern, who uses paint, pixels, sound, and soil to explore the healing counterbalance between centering and chaos. The exhibition draws on lifelong threads of Ahern’s creative practice, including philosophy, symbolism, and the tension between what can be touched and what can only be seen. It considers how we seek equilibrium in an unsettled world.
The work begins in Ahern’s garden in Northport, New York, where she goes when life gets loud. Looking closely at a single flower brings her back to balance.
In her oil paintings, Ahern glazes magnified flowers from her own garden in thin, transparent layers over abstractions drawn from images of the galaxy. The works invite contemplation of harmony and balance in both the microcosm and macrocosm of our existence. Circles and spheres run through this work and carry many meanings: the circle of life, the feminine, nurture, meditation, and safety. Each flower moves through its own journey, from seed to bloom and back to seed again, and in that cycle the circle becomes a reflection of our own human continuity.
Five digital artworks extend the same symbolism through a different process. Each began as live flowers captured on a scanner and is printed on canvas. Where the paintings hold the mark of her hand, these works hold the trace of the machine, offering another way into the same questions of transformation and balance.
At the center of the exhibition is A Space for Centering, an immersive installation of flower video, sound, living plants, and water that recreates the calm of time spent close to plants and flowers. Through this range of media, the show offers a respite from the stresses of daily life and invites each viewer to find their own point of stillness.
Being near nature, or even near art that evokes it, changes something in the body. Stress loosens its grip, and something closer to peace takes its place. Neuroaesthetics, the study of how art and beauty affect the brain and body, gave Ahern language for what the garden had long been teaching her. Her work encourages viewers to pause, consider the delicate equilibrium that sustains us, and recognize the connections between inner experience, the natural world, and the cosmos
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For press: Read the press release
Ceres Gallery is a feminist, not-for-profit alternative space in New York City dedicated to promoting contemporary women in the arts. Founded to expand opportunities for women artists, Ceres provides an inclusive exhibition space that raises public awareness and challenges the limited access women often face in commercial galleries.
