Through travelling and immersing herself painting in these landscapes, Mary-Lynne forms a deep connection to an ancient landscape of tilted and folding molten rocks formed over millions of years. She challenges herself to look at the landscape in new ways so layering and lyricism as well as uncertainty are very much a part of the way her work evolves allowing for surprise juxtapositions of colour and form to create a dance for the eye to travel around and through the painting. This work is a playful celebration of an exciting landscape.
Mary-Lynne Stratton’s work struck all the judges as being amazing, absolutely amazing. It is vibrant, it’s visually intelligent and it’s incredibly sophisticated. It doesn’t stem only from a white tradition but also from an indigenous tradition but it doesn’t actually dictate it. There’s so many levels of subtlety when you look into the painting, the giant pearl like scattering of dots, the echoing vibrating colour reflexes that are throughout the work. It’s a painting you actually want to enter inside and once you enter it and go for a walk it’s really quite exciting what you can find there. You see pools of darkness, radiating hills and that wonderful boom of the sky. All of us the more we looked at it the more we fell in love with it and thought this is really a very, very major achievement from an artist who’s subtle, sophisticated and who knows the country, has looked at the country feels the country evokes the country, the sense of identity, the sense of place.” – Sasha Grishin, 2020 (Collie Art Award)
Mary-Lynne is an award winning artist and has lived in the Yallingup hills for 34 years. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Edith Cowan University. Mary-Lynne’s paintings are interpretations of the northern landscapes of WA, NT and Central Australia. She spends time travelling and painting plein air in gouache in remote areas absorbing and connecting deeply with our ancient landscape made up of molten rock formations evolved over millions of years.
The randomness of tilting and folding rocks with their jewel like qualities glistening in the morning and evening light feeds into her imagination providing fertile material to respond to. Once back in the studio these forms are reimagined and become a playful framework to interpret, using colour, form and various marks in oils.
“I’m open to the possibilities of what the work can become, never quite knowing what the outcome will be I allow the painting to evolve slowly drawing on the memory of the emotional experience felt in a particular place. I always challenge myself to look at the landscape in a new way so layering and lyricism as well as uncertainty are very much a part of the way my work evolves allowing for surprise juxtapositions of colours and form to create a dance for the eye to travel around and through the painting”.
EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT
2019 Travelled to the Northern Territory and Kimberley on painting field trip
2018 Workshop with Idris Murphy in NT East McDonald Ranges
2017 Workshop with Idris Murphy in Sydney 2017 Delivered a workshop ‘Mark making &
Concertina books’ Yallingup
2017 Organized a workshop with Sydney artist Jo
Bertini at Eagle Bay WA
2015 Northern Territory painting field trip 2013 Pilbarra painting field trip
2004 & 2006 & 2011 Kimberley painting field trip
2005 Conducted a one-day workshop at BRAG
Bunbury on “Encaustic Wax”.
2005 Arts Worker for ‘DADAA’ in Bunbury delivering a 10-week painting
workshop for adults with disabilities
2001-2004 Bachelor of Art, (Visual Arts) Edith Cowan University; Faculty of Regional
Professional Studies in Bunbury 2004 Certificate 1V in Guildelines for
Competency based assessment in Vocational Education and training, WA
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS (include)
2020 Yallingup Galleries Exhibition
2006 Broome, Gecko Gallery ‘Only Visiting’ 2005 Yallingup Galleries Yallingup ‘Off the Wall
and Into Water’
SELECTED GOUP EXHIBITIONS (include)
2022 SWAN City of Bunbury Award
2021 City of Busselton Art Award
2019 Finalist City of Busselton Art Award 2017 Finalist City of Busselton Art Award 2015 Finalist City of Busselton Art Award 2014 Finalist City of Busselton Art Award 2013 Heathcote Museum & Gallery Perth
‘Printmakers Landscape’
2013 ‘South West Survey’, Bunbury Regional
Gallery
2012 Finalist in the Waterhouse Art Prize Adelaide
Museum
2012 South West Survey’ Bunbury Regional
Gallery
2012 ‘Signature Southwest’ ArtGeo Busselton 2011 ‘South West Survey’ Bunbury Regional
Gallery
2011 ‘Inked Up’ Printmaking exhibition ArtGeo
Busselton
2011 ‘Signature Southwest’, ArtGeo Busselton 2009 ‘South West Survey’, Bunbury Regional
Gallery
2008 ‘Alumni Eighteen’ A survey of works by
Visual Art Graduates ECU
2008 ‘South West Survey’, Bunbury Regional
Gallery
AWARDS
2020 Collie Art Award overall winner
2018 Best work on Canvas Morowa Art Award 2017 Overall winner of 50th Wine Anniversary Label
Margaret River
2016 Overall prize Winner Cossack Art Award
2016 Overall prize Winner Vasse Art Award
2016 Overall Prize Winner Pemberton Art Award
2011 3rd Overall prize Signature South West Busselton 2010 2nd Overall prize Signature South West Busselton 2007 Acquisitive prize City of Bunbury Art Collection,
South West Survey
2006 Acquisitive prize South West Survey Dale Alcock
Award
2006 Highly Commended oil painting ‘Vasse School
Exhibition’ judged by Alan Dodge, WA Art Gallery
COLLECTIONS
Collie Shire Art Gallery Karratha Shire, Manjimup Shire, Bunbury Regional Art Gallery
Bunbury Regional Hospital Health Campus
Collection, Dale Alcock Collection, and many private collections.
“Being immersed and walking through these places of molten rock formations evolved over millions of years provides a strong footing providing me with a sense of belonging and connectedness to something bigger than myself. I am in awe of this ancient land and enjoy using the framework of rocks to inject a sense of playfulness and richness and reverence. “ Mary-Lynne Stratton 2022