About
Mary Ivison is a visual artist tracing the elusive boundary between our inner and outer worlds.
Mary Ivison’s practice explores the unseen relationships between our internal lives and the world around us. Working across acrylic, watercolour and natural pigments, she is interested in mapping what can be felt but not always seen — energy, atmosphere, memory, intuition and the ways these forces shape our perception of person and place.
Moving between observation and abstraction, Ivison uses layers, recurring forms and intuitive mark-making to trace connections between inner and outer worlds. Her process draws on ideas of affective mapping and attunement, considering how a place, experience or relationship can shape us while being shaped by our own perception in return.
Underlying her work is an interest in interconnected systems and the idea that nothing exists entirely on its own. Painting becomes a way of following these relationships — between the visible and invisible, personal and collective, physical and felt — without needing to fully resolve them.
CV
Education
2019-2024 Brock University, BA, Studio Art
Exhibitions, Solo
2024 “Five Spirited” Art and You Gallery, Grimsby ON, Canada
2023 Into body, Into Spirit, The Green, St Catharines ON, Canada
2023 Precise Unification, In the Soil Arts Festival, St Catharines ON, Canada
2023 Space, Place & Spirit, Mahtay Cafe and Gallery, St. Catharines ON, Canada
Exhibitions, Group
2026 A4A, Mill of Kintail, Almonte, ON
2026 Art in the Attic, Old Almonte Town Hall, Almonte, ON
2024 Transcendence, Boomer Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2024 Visions, Fox Yard Studio, Suffolk, United Kingdom
2024 Expressions Juried show, John Mann Gallery, St Catharines ON, Canada
2024 See You Tomorrow, Niagara Artist Centre, St Catharines ON, Canada
2023 Return to Blume, VISA Gallery, St. Catharines, ON, Canada
2023 Pelham Art Festival, Pelham ON, Canada
2023 We are Here, VISA Gallery, St. Catharines ON, Canada
2023 Annual Juried exhibition at VISA Gallery, St. Catharines, ON, Canada
2023 You are here, 15 Artists Common, St. Catharines ON, Canada
2019 Annual Juried exhibition, Centerpoint theaters
Residency
2022-2023 Nest Emerging Artist Residency, Suitcase in Point, St. Catharines, Canada
2023 Awakening Thematic Artist Residency, Artscape Gibraltar Point, Toronto Island, Canada
2025 Mabiang Seni Process Based Artist Residency, Bali, Indonesia
Grants / Bursary
2023 Medland and Green Inspiring Artist Bursary
Press / Media
2023 The A-Word, “MARY IVISON | SPACE, PLACE & SPIRIT”
http://bartgazzola.com/reviews/mary-ivison-space-place-spirit/
2023 Emerging Women in the arts, “Episode 2: Mary Ivison”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSUKweGzGts