Mary Ellen Bartley

In Residence:
February 3, 2015 - February 28, 2015
Discipline:
Photography
Country:
United States

Mary Ellen Bartley is an American artist who was born in the Bronx and currently lives and works in Wainscott, New York on the eastern end of Long Island. Bartley is known for her photographs that explore the tactile and formal qualities of the printed book and their potential for abstraction. Her work has been exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, including the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, NY; the Center for Photographic Arts in Carmel, CA; Fototropia Gallery in Guatemala City, Guatemala; and at the galleries where her work is represented: The Drawing Room in East Hampton and Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York. Her first solo museum exhibition opened in the fall of 2014 at the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, NY.

 

Photographer Mary Ellen Bartley will make a set of photographs using books from The Watermill Center Study Library as subjects. The photographs will be used to create a book of books, whose format and edition are yet to be determined. The books that Robert Wilson has left bookmarks and handwritten notes in are of particular interest, as they illustrate the way books can be used as inspirational sources and create layers of connection between artists, ideas, and places separated by time and geography. Rather than use the library for research, Bartley will interact with volumes that catch her eye and follow the connections that arise in studying them through her camera.

For the past six years, Bartley has been using books as subject matter in her photography. She recently had an exhibit featuring selections from several of her series at The Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton. For that exhibition, Bartley produced an artist catalogue with a small art press, Conveyor Arts, which inspired her to design a book that is an art piece in itself, a book of books. The Study Library at The Watermill Center is a perfect setting and source to explore the idea of a library of inspiration. Robert Wilson’s library is a curated collection amassed over time and inextricably connected to his life, work, travels, community and collection. Rich with layers of use and potential, Bartley will explore its volumes and create a document adding her own layer of inspiration from it. The book created from this residence can then have its own place within the stacks when completed.

 

Skip to content