Mary is based in Cheshire and paints mostly in oils; she particularly enjoys painting portraits, horses, spiders and bones.
Mary has always painted and drawn but pursued a career in archaeology. She has excavated in a lot of places, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, and is now a lecturer at the University of Liverpool. Archaeology involves plenty of drawing and has made Mary an excellent draftsperson, although it has also left her with an abiding fascination for drawing and painting human bones. An interest in portraiture developed during the COVID pandemic, which she spent living alone; painting people provided a way of interacting with other human beings. She also took to painting the other living things in her house, particularly the bathroom spiders which cast beautiful, intricate shadows. Mary tends to favour darker themes for her art and recently completed a series of watercolours about the Ukraine War. She regularly takes on commissions, mostly for portraits.