Currency, 2007-2012
On September 24, 2007 the president of Iran spoke at Columbia University amid protests and much controversy. I found the event, coverage and images of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad compelling and made some drawings of him from various Web–based news sources. Drawing his face connected me to him—I wanted to know more about his past as well as Iran's history. I've continued to draw the face of a world leader every day since then. My goal is to isolate that person and try to understand their behavior, to be attentive and present as a citizen of the world. Before beginning the portrait, I assign it a position on the tabloid-size paper according to my sense of optimism or pessimism regarding their behavior--the higher it is on the page, the greater my hope for world harmony. Thus, I'm delineating an ever growing, biased global event time-line. To underscore the diaristic nature of the undertaking, I hang the drawings in a calendar format, in monthly grids. After I complete the drawing I scan it, returning it to its digital beginnings and send it back into the Web, to a museum staff member, who then prints it and hangs on the gallery wall, so that it mirrors my journalism-meets-journal studio installation and practice.
The title, of the piece, Currency, most obviously references my desire and attempt to keep informed of and bear witness to, world events. We speak of an idea having currency meaning that it is widely accepted and circulated. The title Currency also refers to the scale of the portraits themselves, which might evoke a bank note or dollar bill portrait, an image of power and money entwined.

And Roses Too

This painting series is a visual diary formed by my practice of appreciating and indexing the flora growing in the city park near my home. These paintings of flowers, trees and gardens are made alla prima after an early morning walk through the park. In them, I try to immediately and spontaneously capture something of the awe that the perpetually changing visual arena brings. Each day I take in what the seasons deliver, and aim, with this most intimate of labor forms, to model a shape of the world, something I can hold and contemplate. The images are, for me, small celebrations, little cracks of light in a world that can seem unknowable and impenetrable.

The paintings have an impasto surface which I build up through construction and constructive deconstruction, repeating, until I find the form. This framework allows me to locate the work between abstraction and depiction and to prioritize discovery through process.

 

 “Painting is proof of love for the world” Maria Lassnig

Light Installations, 2002-present

In the site-specific series Light Installations, light and shadow from nearby windows seem to be raking the walls of the gallery. The illusion, however, is a hand-painted trompe l'oeil shard, often situated in rooms with little or no natural light. In this work I rely on the viewers knowledge and memory of light intersecting space to raise questions of belief and doubt. These pieces are meant to give the viewer time to enjoy not-knowing, and to privilege questions over answers. By puzzling the physical senses (setting up the viewer to fail at identifying something as elemental as light), these paintings celebrate the pleasure of trying to understand those things just outside the grasp of physical intelligence.

Paper Rooms, 2006

These sculpted paintings begin with a single piece of paper that I fold and cut to resemble a small room with windows. I then cast light into the room from an exterior source. Unfolding the room, I recall the places that received light when page was a box shape, and paint the light as I remember it. I embellish the memory by including an imagined exterior landscape. In this way, I think of the rooms as the retelling of an event, related to short stories and unreliable narrators.

Coastal Sunrise Paintings

In February last year, during funeral preparations for a family member, I lodged in a cottage on the shore of Lake Luzerne. The first time I saw the lake, near midnight, the full moon was theatrically illuminating the lake’s frozen surface. Later, unable to sleep, I noticed the sky was beginning to shift into predawn light. I dressed and went out on the lake. Contemplating the sublime phenomenon, I understood, that this moment would begin a new series of paintings. I made the first of the Sunrise series when I returned to my Brooklyn studio two days later.

In April, 2024 just weeks after that experience, I had the extraordinary opportunity to spend 24 days at a residency on the southern coast of Maine. The Surf Point Sunrise Studio, was named for the way it had been situated—the studio is an elevated perch directed to the east—perfect for witnessing first light. Each day I woke up an hour before dawn and scrambled onto the rocky shore to watch the sunrise. I often made color notations and shot video, but mainly, I observed. I was enthralled to survey the assembly the sea and sky made with the arrival of the morning sun.

As the sun rose and light flooded the early spring landscape, I would return to the studio to begin the day’s sunrise painting. There, I could look out the window at the ocean and refresh my memory about landscape specifics, but the atmospheric light and color was something I had to try to get down on the canvas before the fleeting experience was forgotten. After ten to twelve hours of work, the painting would have an impasto surface built through construction and constructive deconstruction. The approach I took prioritized discovery through the process of finding the form. The next day I would begin again.

Mary Temple

2025