Mercury 20 Gallery

Looking for meaning in patterns of everyday life, artist Mary V. Marsh records moments and collects artifacts from her daily activities to explore issues of media, memory and persuasion.
 
Drawing in a sketchbook on her daily commute, Marsh records people reading--engaged in their private experience within the public space. The drawings are transformed into relief prints that are hand-printed on discarded library cards, newspapers, and book pages. Marsh also prints over newspaper transfer on fine print paper. The materials and techniques used evoke a history of printing, suggest nostalgia for expiring mediums and chronicle the changing formats of reading. In Everyone Needs a Story, Marsh reflects on her need for reading and how the medium conveys the message. The ever-changing world of digital communication makes the artist anxious, while the static print on paper provides comfort, a relic of another time.
 
Mary V. Marsh was born in Portland, Oregon and has been living and making art in the Bay Area since 1982. She received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1992. She has exhibited in many venues in the Bay Area with solo shows at: the San Jose Museum of Art, Berkeley Art Center, and San Francisco Public Library, Skylight Gallery. She makes multiples and artist’s books under the imprint of Quite Contrary Press.
 
http://www.maryvmarsh.smugmug.com/