Mary Kamerer
www.MaryKamerer.com
I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and moved to Charlotte, North
Carolina in 1987. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and
seriously began pursuing an art career shortly after my children were grown,
studying various art forms such as photography, stained glass, watercolor, ceramics
and completing a one-year apprenticeship in goldsmithing. I quickly fell in love
with oil painting and, in spite of many years in art, I consider myself an emerging
artist. My style is of an impressionistic nature, with liberal use of pallet knives,
emphasizing light, interesting textures and variations.
When I’m not chasing the light to capture in my art, I like to tell the untold story of
scenes from the Carolinas—with such a variety of people and landscapes from the
mountains to the sea, the possibilities are endless, and the lifestyles are quite
varied. Ultimately, I am embracing the role of artist as activist…encouraging my
viewer to see a new perspective.
A recent mixed-media series, “Finding Your Homestead”, highlights farm life and its
isolation. That beneath the vast, glorious skies of the homestead, the existence on
America’s slowly-disappearing farms is beautiful but lonely. For this series, I
combined collage (textured papers, maps, pages of books), textured mediums, and
oil paint. The resulting texture lends itself to the rustic nature of the subject,
emphasizing the unrefined elements of farm life. Parts of the canvas are seemingly
blank, but upon closer examination, one can see textures and paint. These “hidden”
materials encourage the viewer to take a closer and hopefully new look. The white
areas act as a unifier within each piece, and also as a common element between all
of the seven pieces in the series.