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Join Mary Branson, former Watts Gallery Artist in Residence, for this Lunar-inspired ceramics workshop. Hear about Mary’s practice, inspiration and current projects as you visit her artwork Daughters of Theia. Then return to the Foyle Pottery Studio to create your own Lunar Mobiles and Moon Goddesses in earthenware clay, learning techniques in hand building and slip finishes.
Mary Branson is best known for her large scale conceptual light sculptures and installations, particularly the iconic ‘New Dawn’ 2016 sculpture in the Houses of Parliament, which celebrates the centenary of the Suffrage movement and is the first permanent piece of contemporary abstract art in the Palace of Westminster.
She has created light and sound works for the London 2012 Olympics, Royal Holloway University and most recently ‘Harvest’ a huge site specific installation at Box Hill Surrey in collaboration with Surrey Hills and the National Trust, highlighting the plight of farmers facing climate change.
At the beginning of 2019 Mary transformed Salisbury Cathedral into an ethereal construction site.
She is an award-winning print maker, a choreographer for a number of performance and dance events, and a mentor and public speaker, having lately returned from a lecture tour to New York and Washington.
Using familiar objects and materials, and experimenting with scale, light, colour and multiplicity, Branson wants to form new environments that are stimulating, playful, and questioning of the existing polemics concerning art and the space it inhabits.
Branson enjoys the challenge of using landscape and architecture as a backdrop to site-determined pieces. She often works with teams of volunteers to help her realise her ambitious uses of scale and finds the shared ownership of the community as an important part of her artistic process.
She has held a number of artistic residencies, including for Parliament, the British Council, Crisis and HM Prison service, where she led an art group for women life prisoners.
As many of her installations are temporary, Mary’s projects can encompass elements of performance, photography, film and sound as forms of documentation. She also produces smaller scale works in glass and ceramics.
Mary lives and works in Surrey. She received a first-class honours degree in Fine Art from the Surrey Institute in 2002, followed by an MA in Art and Space at Kingston University in 2004.
Mary is currently working on a series of large-scale pieces for various locations around the UK.