Wedding Ritual #8: Mary Rouncefield

Mary Rouncefield 

graduated with honours from the University of the West of England's faculty of Art, Media and Design, where she had studied as a mature student, in 2009. Mary works in a variety of media, including textiles, drawing and print, and exhibits prolifically.

Past exhibitions include the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2007, ‘Titanic 100’ in New York and a number of shows held at The Royal West of England Academy in her home city of Bristol.

In 2014 a series of Rouncefield's drawings were exhibited by Guerrilla Galleries in London. She is passionate about addressing political and campaign issues in her work. In 2015, her work Campaign Boots was exhibited in ‘Passion For Freedom’ at The Mall galleries in London, she contributed to ‘Traditions Run Deeper than Law’ at the Red Gallery, and the series Mathematical Curves was shown at the Portico Library and Gallery in Manchester. Mary also painted live at Upfest - the Street Art festival held in Bristol - every year from 2015 to 2018.

Here are Mary's artworks old, new borrowed and blue, in her own words:

Something Old

Ellipse

Hyperbola

Parabola

Trapped in 3D

"For most of my life, I have found the beauty of maths, geometry and patterns fascinating, and have recently been trying to link maths and art in a series of drawings, prints and paintings entitled Mathematical Curves. I have found that mathematical language can be used to describe beautiful curves but also that mathematical logic is very constraining. It was this constraint and requirement for exactitude, which led me to link mathematics and corsets. I have made a series of twelve screen prints in total, each showing a mathematical curve together with a female figure echoing that curve. The figure to a certain extent, is autobiographical, as her movement is constrained by the form of the curve and she can not break away from it."

Something New

Burn i and Burn ii 
(Click each image for a larger version)

"Currently climate change is a major concern. Even more concerning is the fact that this problem seems to be being ignored in many quarters. Covid 19 seems to be the all-consuming problem of the moment with governments around the world concentrating their efforts on trying to decide what to do next.

"Winter 2019/2020 (summer in the Southern hemisphere) was plagued by bush fires in Australia and forest fires in the Amazon after a season of wild fires in California, while fires in the forests of Siberia seem to burn continuously. Film reports on television seem to be so frequent as to become virtually invisible but I felt compelled to paint these two paintings."

Something Borrowed

Detail from Guernica by Pablo Picasso

"Corona Virus.

‘Lockdown’ - and I froze, art-wise. 

Was it anxiety?

Probably.

‘Picasso and Paper’ at the Royal Academy went online. I looked again at Picasso and was inspired by the anxiety and emotion which seems to be lurking beneath the surface of his portraits and other works. Or was that my own feelings, colouring my interpretation of those paintings?

Anyway - I finally got going and have lashed out a few ‘tribute paintings’ re-interpreting COVID19"

Something Blue

Yoga "I think she’s an escapee from the Mathematical Curves series!"

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You can see more of Mary's work at maryrouncefield.co.uk (where some pieces are available for purchase), and at 44AD artspace in Bath from 9 to 16 August 2020.

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Wedding Ritual #9 will be conducted by Merny.

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