Mary Lang
An Torr, view of Bidean nam Bian, near Glen Coe, Scotland, archival digital print, 2017
Artist Statement
My photographs are the visual records of a sentient being, standing on the earth, sensitive to the phenomenal world. More poignantly, they are expressions of my grief and love for the earth; grief for the loss happening every day, and yet unabated love for this place I live on/walk on/inhabit.
Photographs are single perceptions, clear and vivid. Like the turning of a kaleidoscope, for a moment time stops, everything falls into place and I am part of the invisible pattern that holds the world together. Though standing on the earth, it still feels groundless.
In the open-hearted sadness of direct perception, in the feeling of liminal presence, there’s an intimacy, a magical connection to the elemental quality of the land. Held within the camera’s frame, the details of the photograph - space, light, texture, shape, tone - are portals to the infinite number of spaces, textures, light, air, movement, life and death, that is everywhere in the natural world. My hope is that these photographs, like poetry, express something that cannot be expressed in any other way.
I wake up early every day. As I drink my coffee, I look out the kitchen window into the pitch black of a dark winter morning, or if it’s summer, stand on the screened porch, and take in the beauty of the yard and the relative peace of my surroundings. But there’s always a hole in my heart. The suffering, coarseness and cruelty, the chaos, aggression and confusion of the times we live in is always present as a shadow, always just a breath or a news alert away. Climate change haunts me. Realizing that the world I have known for my lifetime will not be the world that my grandson will grow up in makes the hole in my heart more like a crater. Every week, if not every day, somewhere in the world, in quiet ways or with destruction fast and inexorable, we are losing the earth that we love.
I did not set out to make photographs about climate change. I wanted to make photographs that were an emotional record of what it feels like to be a sentient being here on earth, to express the emptiness and fullness of those moments. My very humanness, however, implicates me as a participant in the anthropocene. Everything we do is changing our world, yet this is where we live.
Here, nowhere else.
Artist Bio
Mary Lang has been a member of Kingston Gallery for 20 years, and has served as director twice during those years. She was included in the 2004 DeCordova Annual Exhibit and was a recipient of an artists Grant-in-Aid award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation in 2006. She has been an artist-in-residence at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon and at the J. Alden Weir Farm National Historic Site in CT. Her work has been reviewed in The Boston Globe and Art New England; her 2014 one-person retrospective exhibit, Like Water, at the Trustman Gallery at Simmons College was reviewed by Mark Feeney. Her photographs are included in collections at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Fogg Museum at Harvard, the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, and the Fidelity Corporate Collection, among others and in many private collections. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from Pratt Institute and a Bachelors of Arts from Smith College. She teaches meditation and Shambhala Buddhism at the Boston Shambhala Center in Brookline. The Bottom of the Sky, a 60-page book of photographs and haiku, in collaboration with poet David Rome, is available on lulu.com.
Beaver Swamp, Farandnear, Shirley, MA, May, 2021 (Archival digital print)
Rhododendron, Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary, June, 2021 (Archival digital print)
Through the dahlias, backyard, Auburndale, August, 2021 (Archival digital print)
Queen Anne’s lace, parking lot, early evening, Auburndale, MA, 2020 (Archival digital print)
Spider Web, Rail Trail between Northampton and Hadley, MA, 2018 (Archival Digital Print)
Press + Media
At Simmons, “Like Water”, for spirit, Boston Globe review, Mark Feeney
Shooting Through the Fog: Mary Lang wants you to stay focused. Artscope review by Brian Goslow
Outside and In Touch: Cate McQuaid in the Boston Globe
Spring, Elin and Révy, Suzanne. "Best Photo Picks of September 2019!" What Will You Remember?, September 4, 2019.
This one but not that one: Perception, Editing and Meaning
"Photographic postcards from Mary Lang" Kingston Blog, Thinking About Art Out Loud, January 29, 2016
"All Natural: A Conversation with Al Miner." Kingston Blog, Thinking About Art Out Loud, September 4, 2015.
Exhibitions
Farandnear: New Photographs, June 1-26, 2022, Kingston Gallery
Here, Nowhere Else, New Landscapes, September 4-29, 2019, Kingston Gallery
Wonderland: Landscape Photographs, Kingston Gallery May 3 – 28, 2017
The Bottom of the Sky, haiku by David Rome and photographs by Mary Lang, 62 page book
Art Focus Selection, New England Biolabs, Beverly, MA, August 10–September 27, 2016
ALL Natural, Four-person members’ exhibition, curated by Al Miner, Kingston Gallery, September 2 –27, 2015
Like Water, one-person retrospective exhibition, Trustman Gallery, Simmons College, March 19 – April 17, 2014
Gazing into Space, one-person exhibition, Kingston Gallery, November 5 – 30, 2014
Art in Boston, Maud Morgan Arts, Cambridge, MA, January 14 – March 1, 2013 Catalog of the same exhibit
Raising the Gaze, Kingston Gallery, October 2012
Sometimes a golden fish swims by, one-person exhibition, Kingston Gallery, June 2010
Water: Mystery and Plight, two-person show with Christine DesTrempes, Sharon Art Center, Peterborough, NH
Downstream – Current Works on Water by Six Artists, Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, Keene State College, Keene, NH
“Pointing Out Ordinary Mind”, Buddhadharma magazine, portfolio of photographs, Fall 2009
drawing on water, Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA, April 1 – 26, 2008
drawing on water, 20-page catalog to accompany the show, April, 2009
All Media Exhibition, Providence Art Club, Providence, RI, March 16 – April 5, 2008
Photographs of Children from the DeCordova Permanent Collection, DeCordova Museum
Sameness Difference Stillness Movement, Ogle Gallery, Portland, OR December 2007 – February 2008
groundless – new photographs of water, Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA
“Into the Depths of Emptiness”, Buddhadharma magazine, May-June, 2006, portfolio of photographs
Desire Lines, one-person show, Fraser Gallery, Georgetown, District of Columbia
Four Artists in Search of the Intangible, Trustman Gallery, Simmons College, Boston, DeCordova Annual Exhibition, DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
One-person Show, J. Alden Weir Farm National Park, Branchville, CT
Different Spaces/Places, Peck Gallery, Central Wyoming College, Riverton, WY
Reflections of Emptiness, one-person show, Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA
Landscapes Seen and Imagined, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA
Passion, juried by William Stover, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA
New Landscape Photography, The Fraser Gallery, Bethesda, MD
New England Photographers ’03, Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA
Photography Past and Present, Gallery Kayafas, Boston, MA
Stillness and Occurrence, one-person show, Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA
Crater Lake Centennial Exhibition, Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR
Alone: Images of Isolation from the permanent collection, DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
“Thought-Free Wakefulness”, Shambhala Sun magazine, October, 2002, portfolio of photographs
Red, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA
Wonderland, Center for Photography at Woodstock, publication, juried by Yancey Richardson
New England Photographers, 2001, Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA
Water, photographs from the permanent collection, DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
Members’ Exhibition, Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA, juried by Deborah Martin Kao
Manifest 2001, Juried Photography Show, The Copley Society, Boston, MA
The Old Ball Game, photographs of baseball, The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA
Photo 2000, Classic Black and White Photography, Brush Art Gallery, Lowell, MA (Honorable Mention Award)
Awake: Contemporary Buddhist Artists, Harbor Art Gallery, UMass-Boston, MA
The Sanctity of the Family, Hunger Artist Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
What's The Story? The Narrative in Art, Fort Point Artists Community Gallery, Boston
The Family in Photography, Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS
True Stories in the Backyard, (3-person show), Trustman Gallery, Simmons College, Boston, MA