Mary Beierle grew up alongside the Los Angeles Mountains and has trekked throughout the mountains and glaciers of the American West.  The trembling of the tectonic shifts in that rugged terrain and the visual imprint of that geology are major influences in her work.  She merges images of the landscape with abstracted human forms to explore our relationship with the natural world.   Her sculptures evoke a tapestry of ideas ranging from the mundane to the heroic.  These ideas are explored through emerging and receding figures, glazing as subject and composition, and contrasts of scale - from miniature to massive, larger than life-sized, pieces. She is interested in creating an experience of form and space that the viewer may touch, peer into, and encounter from various perspectives.

 

Mary initially studied biopsychology and began her formal art studies after living in Europe and Asia.  She received her MFA from California State University, Long Beach were she also received art/travel grants to study Alaskan Glaciers, Paleolithic cave drawings and sculpture, and art studies in Italy, Korea, and China.  Mary’s art is in international public and private collections and has been exhibited in the United States and Europe including: The Fête Picasso, Vallauris, France; The American Museum of Ceramic Art, the Shoshana Wayne Gallery; the Saltzbrand Ceramic, Koblenz Germany; Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for the Arts and Crafts; the W. Keith and Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery; San Bernardino County Museum, and the Wignall Museum Gallery. She has received the Dan McGrath Award for Excellence in Art, the Art Graduate Award for Outstanding Achievement, Purchase Award Ink and Clay 30, and the Beverly G. Alpay Art Award.  She currently teaches 2D art and ceramics at Cypress and Chaffey College and is a Resident Artist at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA).

 

Excavation Series

 

The flower has been used for millennia, cross-culturally, as a symbol for transcendence into the sublime.  I am interested in the image of the flower as a vehicle for this transformation.  We all encounter struggles and sorrows in this journey called life. I begin the sculptural process on the potter’s wheel, folding and expanding the delicate porcelain layers into a Fibonacci composition, a sequence found very often in nature. I am fascinated that a delicate object, like a flower, has such a powerful spiritual and aesthetic presence and ability to help us and lift our spirits.

 

 

Monolith Series

 

This body of work is a response to my treks through the American wilderness and my curiosity about our environment.  I originally began my studies in biology and have long been interested in the geology, flora, fauna, and elemental forces outside the comfort of our homes. Using the dramatic imagery of our western landscape and figures from classical sculpture, I hoped to create a space for the viewer to contemplate our complex relationship to the natural world.

 

 

Gesture Series

 

Gestures are forms of non-verbal communications. or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body. Gestures differ from physical non-verbal communication that does not communicate specific messages, such as purely expressive displays, proxemics, or displays of joint attention.