Tessellations / Paintings by Mary Lingen

Douglas Flanders & Associates is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by Mary Lingen. The exhibition’s title Tessellations refers to Mary Lingen’s unique technique of tiling her paintings’ forms and background planes with interlocking geometric shapes.

 

In her abstract landscape paintings Mary Lingen poignantly captures the hopeful light of Spring, the vibrant light of Summer and Autumn, and both the crystalline and leaden light of Winter. Her daily walks in the northern Minnesota woods bring the heartfelt calm she experiences from seeing the world around her, observing its changes, and looking forward to the way the light looks at certain times. In transposing this calm to canvas, Lingen shares with us the rhythms of nature, be they the fluttering of birch tree leaves in the sunlight or the iciness of the lakeshore at sunset.

 

Mary Lingen uses photos taken on her walks as sources. Beginning with a traditional technique of placing a grid on the photo and a corresponding grid on the canvas, Lingen then lays out a proportional painting composition directly with oil paint. She works on five paintings at a time, with each painting going through at least five total workings before it is done. In her own organically conceived fractalized style Lingen also takes advantage of shapes that arise in the quicker earlier workings.