Mary Chaplin

Blue agapanthus and crocosmias

2017

Mary Chaplin is a professional French artist living in Wailly, near Amiens in the beautiful River Selle Valley. She was born near the Bay of the Somme and spent her younger years in the Picardie countryside, often accompanying her father who was passionate about the local wildlife and environment. Her mother had a beautiful garden where she grew flowers to sell at the weekly village markets , Mary would help her picking and creating bunches of flowers, old roses, peonies, lupines , phlox..., it was surely from these early years that her love of the country , forests and flowers came from. Her earliest works then were motivated by her environment, the sea, fields, forests, country life, not forgetting the flowers in her mother’s garden. The Bay of the River Somme is famous for its flora, fauna and above all its beautiful light which has always been an inspiration for painters, poets and writers. At first she experimented with many different techniques, water colour, pastels, pencil, acrylic and oil, capturing the scenes around her, but even at the beginning of her career she was using light as an integral theme through her works. In 2005 her work took on a great U turn when sitting quietly in a small chapel in a picturesque coastal village , Bois de Cise, she watched the light patterns through the stained glass windows moving slowly over the old flag stone floor. She knew she had to try to capture the light, colours and movement and hurried back to her studio these ephemeral images swirling in her head! The resulting abstract works she called her reflections (in French meditations) Series of paintings were created influenced by the light , colour and textures from the chapel, later from the contrasting shadows cast by the pews , alters, architecture and stonework found in churches and cathedrals throughout Europe, all subtly different but all integrating her personal and metaphorical interpretation and appropriation of light’s fugacity. From this abstraction the natural progression was to return to her roots with the incorporation of her love of flowers and nature into her paintings. Fleeting moments captured in the instant, free and energetic brushstrokes, vivid colours, the wind blowing through the flowers , the storm brewing in the distance or the morning sun shining through the mist over her garden give movement, life, joy and ever changing living beauty to her works. Mary takes us into her universe, a unique approach to a subject that is dear to her heart, inventing happy places which she shares with the viewer. In today’s world of metaphorically everlasting winter she brings us an eternal summer. Mary Chaplin has had many plaudits throughout her career. She has exhibited throughout France, Belgium and England in galleries and private exhibitions. Her art has been published in several reviews, specialist art magazines and television broadcasts. Her art is spread all around the world in Private Collections.