On view at Fountain Street Gallery through July 24th is Melange, featuring the work of Marie Craig and Mary Marley. The artists employ abstraction, bold color, and novel combinations of artistic media, with each resulting piece a vibrant mix. Craig, working in cyanotype and ink, interprets both the natural and built worlds. Marley, in combining acrylic paint and cut paper, creates environs rich with pattern and texture. Taken together, “Melange” presents a show of hybrids in many varieties and a wholly inviting collection of new and experimental work. 

Marie Craig uses alternative process photography to explore the overlap between concrete bodies, or still moments, and the life instilled in them. Working primarily with cyanotype, an early lens-less photographic process, she combines digital negatives and plant material to create images that she then embellishes using line and color. Riffing on the classic method of hand-coloring photos, Craig uses bold color blocking to respond to the indigo of cyanotype and to call attention to the spaces in and around the forms. 

Craig began her career as a medical photographer and illustrator specializing in cell biology before shifting her role to become a photographer, teacher, and curator in the fine art community. She studied at Clark University, MA and Massachusetts College of Art, and has shown her work in exhibitions at Danforth Art Museum, Framingham, MA, COSO, Boston, and BigCi Open Day, Australia. In 2011, Craig co-founded Fountain Street Gallery, and serves as its director. She works from her studio in Natick, MA. 

Mary Marley’s newest mixed media collage series, “Three Times as Much,” combines acrylic paint and cut paper. Marley works on many pieces at once, and her images are built with no fixed notion of a finished product. She begins with loose gestural shapes and large blocks of color, creating her own game of sorts by walking the border of play and disciplined composition. 

Marley studied fine art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and
Lesley University. She has exhibited at The Arts Club, Washington D.C., The Coral Springs Museum of Art, The Whistler Art Museum, as well as in many private collections. Her work is published in How Art Heals and Artscope magazines. Mary has taught art for many years and works from her studio in Millis, Massachusetts. She is a member of NAWA, Encaustic Art Institute, International Society of Experimental Artists, Collage Artists of America, and Gallery Artists at South Shore Art Center. Marley is a Core Member of Fountain Street.

For more information on the gallery please visit www.fsafountain.com.