Mary Carlson’s Summer garden imagines an immersive garden of lightness, with spiraling vines, blossoming flora, and songbirds. The biblical figure of Eve and Dorothea, the patron saint of gardeners, both bask in the verdant abundance that envelops the walls. Drawing upon artistic motifs that date back 2000 years, Carlson considers how humanity’s deep connection to nature usurps any specific place or time. While continuing her exploration with porcelain and metal, Carlson has added laminated bent wood to her artistic materials, the handmade techniques enabling accidents and random chance to emerge as unpredictable aesthetic flourishes. An homage to the vastness and timelessness of beauty, Carlson’s expansive installation that envelops and transports the viewer.

Mary Carlson (b.1951, Stevens Point, WI) has been making her art for over 50 years. Working primarily with porcelain, stoneware, copper, and steel, her process is an independent undertaking, as her glazes, patinas, and metalwork are entirely formed and fired by her own hands at her Walton, NY studio.Carlson’s sculptures often derive from depictions found in Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and paintings.

Summer garden is the artist third solo exhibition at Kerry Schuss Gallery. A Guggenheim, Tiffany, NEA, and NYFA award-recipient, Carlson's work was first shown in New York at Leo Castelli Gallery in 1985. She has also shown in the 1995 Venice Biennale, Kunsthalle Wein; Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; the New Museum; the Aldrich Museum and numerous galleries in New York and around the country. Most recently she was awarded a fellowship at Civitella Ranieri, Italy for September 2021.