Mary Early (born 1975, Washington, DC) lives and works in Washington, DC. She studied visual art, film, and video at Bennington College, and her work has been exhibited at the United States Botanic Garden, Washington Project for the Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Second Street Gallery (Charlottesville, VA), Hemphill Fine Arts (Washington DC,) the Austrian Cultural Forum (Washington DC), Galerie Im Ersten (Vienna, Austria), Kloster Schloss Salem (Salem, Germany), and Kunstlerbund Tubingen (Tubingen, Germany) among other regional and national galleries.
Her early work incorporated formed concrete, tarpaper and paraffin wax, fabricated wood structures, and, increasingly over the years, surfaces coated with wax as a method of preserving or concealing an object within. Recent works have relied solely on solid forms cast in wax, abandoning the use of any permanent armature. Temporary installations are guided by schematic drawings and plans, which then serve as a permanent record.
In 2014 she exhibited her first large-scale installation of wax lines at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, VA, followed by temporary installations in response to various historical sites. Untitled [Curve], 2017, an installation of thousands of beeswax lines on the floor of the American University Museum, is the next in this ongoing series.
Early’s work is included in the collections of the US Department of State/Embassy of Panama, Kimpton Hotels, and the District of Columbia Art Bank among other public and private collections. She is a recipient of the Artist Fellowship Grant from the DC Commission on Arts & Humanities, Washington DC (2016, 2015, 2014, 2011, 2009, 2007). She serves on the boards of Hamiltonian Artists and Washington Sculptors Group.
Email the Artist: maryearly@gmail.com
