MARY LITTLE

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work explores the interaction between light, surface, and gravity. The works take the form of rhythmic, undulating hollows and rises, suggesting images of landscape or bodyscape. My sensibilities are rooted in a childhood among lush rolling farmlands of Ireland and its wild rugged coastlines. The work is ritualistic in its process: cutting, then sewing cotton canvas; much as a tailor would make a suit. The completed works are an interplay between precision planning, my emotions, and the unpredictability of the canvas. 

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Northern Ireland, Mary Little moved to the United States in 2001 to take up a teaching position at California College the Arts (CCA), San Francisco. Trained as a furniture designer at London’s Royal College of Art, she has always approached her work as sculpture.  

In 2015 she made a conscious break and began to create works devoid of functional references. In 2018, Little exhibited this new direction at Craft Contemporary Museum (formerly CAFAM), Los Angeles. Followed by a solo show at Craft in America Center, Los Angeles.  

Her work is in the permanent collections of the Vitra Design Museum in Basel and Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Her commissions and gallery works have been acquired for private collections in Europe and North America, as well as public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Little's work has most recently been reviewed in Architectural Digest, Galerie, and Surface magazines.  

She is a 2019 recipient of the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and lives in Los Angeles.