Mary Walker, born in New York and raised in North Carolina, began her career as a high school math teacher in New York City. Then in 1975 she began studying painting at the Art Students League with Isaac Soyer, who encouraged her to turn to her art full-time. After moving to Charleston, she continued to study painting and printmaking for several years at the College of Charleston. In addition to study, her frequent travel, especially to Italy and Ireland, have been a positive influence in her work. Gradually, she has increased her number of exhibits until she is now represented in galleries in the local region and beyond.

Joanna Innes

Walker’s images are narrative, but not realistic, figurative, but not photographic. She is interested in trying to tell a story, or translate a theme or story into paint. She is drawn to the age-old stories- Greek myths, opera stories, and Shakespeare.

            Lese Corrigan

Mary Walker’s works might best be understood as Whimsical-Realism , an implementation of conservative portraiture extended beyond its usual bounds by imaginative flourishes reminiscent of Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. Her art develops within a standard oeuvre and expands into an almost archetypically personal waking dream, thereby re-stitching the schism that developed between Reason and Imagination resulting from the Enlightenment and its heritage.

Walker blends what H.W. Janson sites as two of the three main currents in early Twentieth Century painting: Abstraction’s concern with the formal structure of a work, and Fantasy’s exploration of the imagination, particularly through a quality of spontaneous emotion. The result is an original style with strong subconscious familiarity that engages both the intellect and the psyche.

Matthew S. Carlos

Summer, 2003