Known in the Pittsburgh region for her compelling images addressing life from the female perspective; Mary Culbertson-Stark has been creating visual narratives for almost four decades.

A graduate of the University of South Carolina and the University of Pittsburgh, Mary credits early theater training at the Pittsburgh Playhouse as setting a solid stage for her individual style of expression. Artfully recreating stories and observations from her personal life and the lives of those she encounters; Mary embodies seemingly simple images of objects, women and landscape with a mystical, emotive spirit. Her image making process is rooted in drawing which she expands upon with an application of mixed media overlays to form surfaces that are ethereal and enigmatic.

Included among the many subjects her work has addressed over the years are: the soul as illustrated through drawings of lingerie and dresses, the loss of a child using embossed book pages, a memoir of western landscape using postcards sent to herself, healing tomes generated from working with patients in a holistic medicine practice, boats and shoes as references to traversing life’s transitions, umbrellas as metaphors for shelter, and most recently, Renaissance iconography in the address of the losses incurred during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mary has been honored with many awards of excellence throughout her career. She was the recipient of three Skidmore College Art Fellowships for Painting and Drawing, an Associated Artists of Pittsburgh grant to engage at risk adolescents in the skills of art entrepreneurship, and has been honored by the Pennsylvania House and Senate for her work in arts education. Mary has also served in many capacities for a variety of art constituencies in the Pittsburgh area. These include Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Watercolor Society, Pittsburgh Fund for Arts Education, Master Visual Artists of Pittsburgh and The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. She taught art for 35 years in the Bethel Park School District, additionally facilitating workshops at CCAC, Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Mellon University Saturday Program and Gannon University. Mary has donated her art and worked on behalf of a number of charitable organizations in Pittsburgh to further raise awareness of their missions.

Prolific and dedicated; Mary has presented 37 solo exhibitions since 1984. She has exhibited at The Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Mellon University, The Andy Warhol Museum, University of Pittsburgh, Indiana University, Slippery Rock University, Seton Hill University, Duquesne University, The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, and The State Museum of Pennsylvania. Her work is included in over 375 private and corporate collections across the US and as far reaching as China, Spain, and Bulgaria.

Drawn From Experience is a collection of mixed media drawings about many of my life experiences. Each image holds, within its surface, a remarkable story. As the artist, I am the narrator. My dialogue is the medium. The images reveal the clues.

In many drawings throughout my career, I’ve employed ordinary objects as subject matter in my work. These objects are symbols chosen with metaphoric intent meant to represent the culminating effects of an experience. Their ordinary qualities appeal to me as familiar and universal, yet their application can result in multiple interpretation. I embrace that duality. It allows the viewer more latitude in bringing their own experience to the viewing of my work.

In other drawings, a portrait has been constructed to represent the facing of a moment or to give face to an experience. Most portraits are composites of others, some are reflections of myself, caught in a moment. Houses, landscapes and other recognizable objects are all employed in the same manner - as vehicles to construct a story of expounded meaning.

Whether it is a pair shoes speaking of a personal struggle, an umbrella commenting on the joy of life, the flirtatious dialogue between a nest and a rogue twig, or a portrait musing about a relationship; my images always tell a human story.

Drawing has been at the nucleus of my work for decades. Its accessibility has always offered me an open path to script an image. I attach a sense of reverence to working on the drawing surface. Frequently, my work returns the favor resulting with images possessive of a mystic and ethereal charge.

Most of my drawings are initiated by the simple act of random mark making ignited by an emotion or something I have seen or read. This random mark making is a way to break the surface of conscious thought. It is a method to access what truly resonates. Though my work is far from resembling the work of the Surrealists; I’ve often employed their common practice of automatic drawing to tap into my subconscious and the source where I believe clear impressions are stored. From that access point, I choose a symbol and begin to work.

Drawing is at once intimate and exposing. There is a relationship an artist establishes with their medium and subject which is difficult to articulate. It is like a second voice rising in the process of creation urging a truthful dialogue in the exposition of an idea. The emergence of a finished drawing is not always an easy path. As in life, there exists within the creative process a great deal of push and pull in order to evidence a desired solution.

For me, a quality of wisdom or knowingness rises during the creative process, attaching special meaning to each image I complete. I have always manipulated the surfaces of my images - so whether gently worked, radiantly embossed or harshly scratched; the surface always acts in concert with the intent and wisdom of the story.

Art, at its most potent, springs from an artists longing to link their private truths and experiences with the truth and experiences of others in a tangible form. Drawing is my tangible form. It is my link.