Mary Hatch

"I'm in love with color, and the figure continues to fascinate me. I find myself moving between paint and canvas and mouse and computer, materials which seem to communicate in some odd, expanded way that I'm helpless to resist."

Focusing on the social surface of America, Mary Hatch loves examining the small sections of our lives. Her work begins with little fragments of life unintentionally stored away—those tiny bits of memory that seem insignificant on their own, but that come together to form narratives that feel familiar. The small things that we take for granted emerge intuitively and paste themselves together.

To Hatch, dance seems a natural and graceful metaphor for human activities. She finds that dancers arrive unbidden even in paintings occupied with other matters. When figures become storytellers, the slightest nuance of position or movement is significant. Often starting with a figure inexplicably positioned "just so," Hatch's oil paintings and prints evolve slowly over time. She feels that paint and pixels are remarkably similar—layers accumulate in a random fashion until a narrative begins to unfold.

Hatch's work has been shown in over 30 one-person exhibits in as many years and is included in more than 300 public and private collections throughout the USA and Canada.