Mary Carlson (b. 1951, Stevens Point, WI) Mary Carlson has been making her art for close to 50 years. Her current medium of choice is hand-built porcelain, with glazes formulated and fired in her Walton, New York studio. She doesn’t limit her choice of mediums, materials, and subject matter: making everything from hand-sewn American flags, a giant crocheted pink octopus, carved life-sized trees to 'altered' furniture. One of her points of focus was to create a series of ‘saints and demons’ based on text and visual depictions of heaven and hell found in Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and paintings. Described by The New York Times as ‘wonderfully soulful’ and ‘as spiritually infectious as they are appealing.’ 

Delving into the translation of times throughout history, in 2019 she read Ron Chernow’s, Ulysses S. Grant and felt a familiarity with Grant. This resulted in a small sculpture of the general based on the imagery from the book cover.

In 2020, going back into interpreting religious stories, she made a number of landscapes out of porcelain that were based on paintings of the Garden of Eden.

Carlson has been the recipient of Guggenheim, Tiffany, NEA, and NYFA awards. She has exhibited professionally since 1985, including at the Venice Biennale, Kunsthalle Wein; Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; the New Museum; the Aldrich Museum and numerous galleries in New York and around the country. In 2021 she was awarded a fellowship at Civitella Ranieri, Italy. Mary Carlson is currently represented by Kerry Schuss Gallery in NY.