Virtual Poems
by: Mary Walker
August 24-December 19 Reception
October 14, 6 -8 p.m., Art Talk
October 21, Noon, St. Paul Companies Pavilion

“Mary Walker makes us think. Her work poses questions, offers solutions and ultimately creates fertile ground for discovery.” I wrote this about a large sculpture installation called Living Conditions Mary Walker created in 2000. In that exhibition Walker’s work explored her affinity with the DADA, Conceptual and Minimalist movements. Virtual Poems, is dramatically different in scale and form; a series of beautiful and richly expressive paintings yet Mary’s invariable exploration of human motivation and emotion remain steadfast. Mary seduces us with carefully chosen words at once simple and entirely evocative. From the painterly surfaces reductive language is poetry stripped to indispensable tex¬tures that is quiet but forceful, accessible and emotionally abundant. Diane DiSalvo Each of these works contains a fragment of conversation or text set in an evocative color field. The words function as a memory prod and pathway for the viewer to enter the work through their experience with each ordinary but often poignant phrase. Words mesh with color, shape and viewer memory to build a larger whole; a virtual poem. Mary Walker Above: Virtual Poem #2