ARTIST PROFILE: MARY MACKEY

Being Where Others Have Already Been, Mary Mackey

Born in Cork in 1960, studied at the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork. She has participated in international group exhibitions in Japan, America, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, China, France, and Great Britain. A painter, glass is her chosen medium. She is a member of the Women’s International Glass Workshop, a group of leading international glass artists. Her work is included in their exhibition Gathering Light, which began its tour as part of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture and then traveled to the Center International du Vitrail in France, and the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea. She has also exhibited widely in Ireland including the Crawford Municipal Gallery, the Catherine Hammond Gallery, Crafts Council of Ireland Gallery, West Cork Arts Centre, National Museum Collins Barracks, and the Galway Arts Centre. She has been the recipient of awards from the Cultural Relations Committee of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Arts Council, the London Arts Board, and in 2009 was given the Golden Fleece Merit Award. Her public commissions include windows for the Mallow Swimming pool, Mater Private Hospital, Ursuline Convent Secondary School and Convent, and St Luke’s Home in Cork.

Mary will speak with Itzell Tazzyman on November 19th as part of the Glass Society of Ireland lecture. Her lecture, entitled On Making a Mark, will provide insight into the proccesses Mary Mackey engages as a painter with the inherent properties of glass; its liquid nature,transparency and opacity; in exploring her concepts of shadow, texture and water, whatever its form, sea, river, moving glacial ice, each making its own mark however impermanent. Mary's lecture will start at 7.30pm (Itzell will speak at 6.30)in the Noel Sheridan room in NCAD, is free of charge and is open to all.