Mary Harker is a Glasgow based artist studying painting and printmaking on the M.Litt Fine Art practice at The Glasgow School of Art. She explores research themes of ageing, identity, memory, and loss, reflecting an intense, eighteen-month period when she moved back into the family home to care for her mother who had dementia.  Her work spans drawing, painting, and various experimental mediums, exploring communication beyond traditional boundaries such as frames and surfaces. Art serves as her medium for processing daily experiences.

Central to her practice is the exploration of human presence, despite their absence, through the objects they possessed and the spaces they inhabited. Imprints, fragments and veiling are employed in her paintings to suggest the human form.  Light and shadow play a pivotal role, offering blurred and fragmented representations of the transient nature of both light and life.  Intangibles such as fading memory, with its fleeting moments of lucidity, are visually represented by alternating soft and sharp focus. Through the use of her mum’s personal artefacts in the making of the works, the artist is adding her marks to the memory of her mum held in her belongings.  In hanging textiles, allowing the works some freedom of movement, she reimagines the space of memory.

Experimentation is key to her methodology.  She embraces the element of chance in the artistic process and avoids preconceived idea of the final product. Instead, she reflects deeply on her work and allows space for adaptation and re-working of ideas to develop the final piece. Through her creative practice she is striving to identify a voice that others will recognise through common life experiences.