Mary Vernon: Color and Navigation

July 5 - 23, 2022

Special Reception: July 8, 5-7pm.

Mary Vernon paintings, widely known for explorations of color, will be shown at Strata Gallery, Santa Fe in July. Vernon paints in ranges of natural and brilliant color with emotional intensity, a sense of memory, and wry humor. She sends our vision on trips through the structure of the painting – a quality she calls navigation. 

On one wall of Strata Gallery, three nine-foot paintings appear with intense color patterns punctuated by almost symbolic black elements – Petunia (reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe’s black flowers), Mirror (reflecting the artist’s studio), and Dragonfly (an Ebony Jewelwing). The surfaces are Yupo, Vernon’s favorite durable paper, pinned to the wall. The opposing wall at Strata holds a number of the works Vernon is noted for – landscapes, still-lives and collaged, witty animals, 

“Color navigates through any of these structures,” Mary Vernon says, “making space and asserting the presence of things awaiting our recognition.”

Mary Vernon is an emerita Professor of Art at Southern Methodist University. She taught painting and drawing, and SMU’s noted color theory course. She was born in New Mexico, educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Mary Vernon has shown her work in France, Hungary, Chile, and Kazakhstan, as well as nationally, and is represented by Valley House Gallery of Dallas. 

Mary Vernon, 2022, Wall with Petunia, Oil, acrylic, and ink on Yupo, 60” x 108”