Ventnor, Isle of Wight — September 2025 — Artist Mary King is bringing forward a highly textured, emotionally resonant exhibition that showcases her push into mixed-media experimentation. Opening at Gallery 44 High Street, the show presents an immersive collection of pieces crafted on heavyweight paper and canvas using collage, washes, inks, and both wet and dry materials.
King’s work in this exhibition layers elements in surprising ways: skins, torn fragments, fluid washes meet rigid textures; ink bleeds contrast with precise mark-making. The materials don’t just coexist — they interact, sometimes in tension, often in harmony, creating a dynamic visual conversation that reflects King’s themes of identity, memory, and the forces that shape perception.
A viewer stepping into the gallery encounters a varied landscape: areas of quiet subtlety where lighter washes mingle with soft edges; more dramatic zones where bold contrast and collage fragments assert themselves. King uses the tension of wet and dry media to draw attention to the materiality of the work — the way paint, paper, and ink behave, resist, absorb or repel.
There is a poetic sense throughout the show, as if each piece is a meditation on layering: both materially — layers of material and media — and metaphorically — layers of experience, memory, and sensory perception. Some works evoke porous boundaries: what is form, what is suggestion; what is visible, what is hinted at.
King’s approach reflects a willingness to embrace unpredictability: how a wash drips, how glue under collage lifts, where pigments bleed. These are not imperfections but essential elements — woven into the skin of the artwork, contributing texture, depth, an almost lived-in quality.
The exhibition doesn’t provide easy answers. Rather, it invites viewers to slow down, to observe the interplay of media, to consider what lies between the marks. It asks: how do our perceptions shift when boundaries are porous? How do memory and material combine to produce meaning?
For those interested, King’s mixed-media works will be on display at Gallery 44 starting from [opening date] through late summer (exact closing date as per gallery schedule). The gallery is located in the Ventnor art-collective space and features works available for purchase, inviting engagement between artist, artwork, and audience.
Through this show, Mary King demonstrates her evolving artistry — pushing beyond conventional boundaries, interrogating materiality, and offering viewers richly layered visual experiences that linger long after stepping away.
