Mary Ellen Bartley: Paperbacks

MARY ELLEN BARTLEY

PAPERBACKS

MARY ELLEN BARTLEY PAPERBACKS

PAGE BOND GALLERY RICHMOND, VA 2322O P: (804) 359 3633 C: (804) 357 7169

MARY ELLEN BARTLEY PAPERBACKS

This series is about muting – pressing a mute button on the world and creating a quiet circumscribed project. I work with books, containers and symbols of stories, information, knowledge and meaning, but I deliberately hide any clues to the books’ contents rendering them anonymous and wordless.

The books are arranged, studied and photographed in a particular light, then slightly rearranged and restudied. The calm palette I discovered in the stacks of paperbacks, containing chalky Necco wafer pastels, fog grays and tooth colored whites further tranquillizes the clamor of narratives, characters and action that must be contained within their pages.

Like Morandi’s bottles the books I employ create tonal poems. Little differences mean a lot on such an intimate scale. There is a world of variations, sequences and arrangements for me to explore.

I am fascinated by the changing role of the book at this time. As information is stored in tinier and tinier digital forms, the analog book seems to be moving into a realm of preciousness.

I have an attachment to the lovely materiality of books, the imperfections of their papery geometry and the very human and comprehensible scale of the contents compressed and contained within them.

Opposite Page Untitled #52, 2010 (p. 32-33) 4

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Untitled #1, 2009 Pigment print Ed. 5/7 18 x 25 inches $5000 framed 6

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Untitled #2, 2009 Pigment print Ed. 4/7 12 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 8

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Untitled #18, 2009 Pigment print Ed. 1/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed 10

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Untitled #20, 2009 Pigment print Ed. 3/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed 12

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Untitled #22, 2009 Pigment print Ed. 1/7 18 x 27 inches $5000 framed 14

Ed. 6/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed

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Untitled #23, 2009 Pigment print Ed. 5/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed 16

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Untitled #35, 2009 Pigment print Ed. 7/7 12 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 18

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Untitled #37, 2009 Pigment print Ed. 1/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed 20

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Untitled #40, 2010 Pigment print Ed. 4/7 12 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 22

Ed. 1/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed

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Untitled #44, 2010 Pigment print Ed. 5/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed 24

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Untitled #45, 2010 Pigment print Ed. 2/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed 26

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Untitled #48, 2009 Pigment print Ed. 1/7 18 x 27 inches $5000 framed 28

Ed. 2/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed

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Untitled #49, 2010 Pigment print Ed. 7/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed 30

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Untitled #52, 2010 Pigment print Ed. 1/7 12 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 32

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Untitled #53, 2012 Pigment print Ed. 6/7 12 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 34

Ed. 2/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed

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Untitled #55, 2013 Pigment print Ed. 7/7 12 x 18 inches $3800 framed 36

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Untitled #56, 2014 Pigment print Ed. 2/7 18 x 27 inches $5000 framed 38

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Untitled #57, 2014 Pigment print Ed. 6/7 12 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 40

Ed. 2/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed

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Untitled #58, 2014 Pigment print Ed. 1/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed 42

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Untitled #60, 2014 Pigment print Ed. 3/7 12 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 44

Ed. 2/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed

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Untitled #62, 2014 Pigment print Ed. 4/7 12 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 46

Ed. 1/7 18 x 27 inches $4500 unframed

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Untitled #63, 2018 Pigment print Ed. 1/7 12 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 48

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Untitled #64, 2020 Pigment print Ed. 1/7 12 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 50

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MARY ELLEN BARTLEY Abbreviated CV Education BFA, Purchase College, SUNY Exhibitions 2022 The Image Gardeners, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA The Image and the Photographic Allusion, Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester, MI 2021 Still Life/ Life Still, Highland Center for the Arts, Greensboro, VT Summer Reading, Center for Book Arts, New York, NY Scene in a Library, Penumbra Foundation, New York, NY (solo) Photographs, Mary Ellen Bartley, Adam Bartos, Laurie Lambrecht, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY 2020 Volumes, Galerie Pugliese Levi, Berlin, Germany (solo) Reading in Color, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA (solo) Return to Summer Reading, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY (solo) 2020 Vision, Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY Interpretation, Studio 11, East Hampton, NY 7 Things Again and Again, Yancey Richardson, online exhibition viewing room (solo) The Armory Show 2020, New York, NY Vision 2020, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM View Find 9, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA 2019 Reading in Color, Yancey Richardson Gallery, NY (solo) Qualities of Light, Center for Creative Photography, Tuscon, AZ What is an Edition Anyway?, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA Parrish Perspectives, Recent Acquisitions in Context, Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, NY Recess, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA 2018 Interventions, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York Spirit of Place, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY Picture: Books, Greensboro Project Space, Greensboro, NC 2017 La Mère, La Mer, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA Mary Ellen Bartley: Reading Grey Gardens, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY (solo) Library Copies, Studio 5, The Queens Museum, New York (solo installation) Deception, Filter Space, Chicago, Illinois Art of the Book, Seager/ Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Spring Installation, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY View Find 6, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, Virginia 2016 Ordinary Pictures, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN Lux: The Radiant Sea, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York Mary Ellen Bartley: Looking Between the Covers, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA Mary Ellen Bartley: Still Books, Anzenberger Gallery, Vienna, Austria (solo) The Tactile Eye, Project Space, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY (solo) The Lives of Books, Dina Mitrani Gallery, Miami, Florida Water/ Bodies, Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY, curator: Eric Fischl A Field Guide to Nowhere, Brock University, Ontario, Canada Discoveries of the Meeting Place, Fotofest International Biennial 2016, Houston, TX

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2015

Mary Ellen Bartley: Reading Robert Wilson, The Watermill Center, Watermill, NY (solo) Winter Salon, The Drawing Room Gallery, East Hampton, NY Off Print Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France Cielo Perro Lobo, National Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Guatemala City, Guatemala Burning with Desire, Curious Duke Gallery, London, UK

Grants, Residencies and Honors New York Foundation for the Arts, Project Grant, 2021 Museo Morandi, Visiting Artist, Bologna, Italy winter 2020 Penumbra Foundation, Publication Collaboration, Penumbra Library Project, 2019, New York, NY The Pollock Krasner House and Study Center, Visiting Artist, Winter 2018, Springs, NY Queens Museum, Reanimation Library, Visiting Artist, January-April 2017, Queens, NY Visual Studies Workshop, Project Room Artist in Residence, April 2016, Rochester, NY Watermill Center, Artist in Residence, February 2015, Watermill, NY Fotobook Festival Kassel, 2015 Book Dummy Award, Reading Robert Wilson shortlisted.

Photolucida Critical Mass 2013 Top 50 Photographers Photolucida Critical Mass 2012 Top 50 Photographers Photolucida Critical Mass 2011 Top 50 Photographers A First Place Lucie International Photo Award for Artists and Models series, 2012 Collections Center for Creative Photography, Tuscon, AZ Guild Hall Art Museum, East Hampton, NY McEvoy Family Collection, San Francisco, CA Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, NY The Watermill Collection, Watermill, NY Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota Publications ‘la mère la mer’ exhibition catalog, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, 2019 Ordinary Pictures, exhibition catalog, Walker Art Center, 2016 Fotograf, #29 contemplation, “Mary Ellen Bartley, Between the Spiritual and the Abstract” by Pavel Banka, volume 16, 2017, Prague, CZ The Tactile Eye, by Mary Ellen Bartley, twelve page insert in Afterimage, The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, Volume 44 Nos 1&2, Summer 2016 Reading Robert Wilson, hand-bound artist book, 2015 Mary Ellen Bartley: Leaning Above the Page, Interview with Ross Bleckner, Guild Hall Museum exhibition catalog, 2014 20 Now: Contemporary Photographers, Nagasaki Shaw and Summer Hung, 2012

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MARY ELLEN BARTLEY PAPERBACKS Catalog Design by Registrar Kirsten Hemrich

PAGE BOND GALLERY 804-359-3633 pagebondgallery.com

Published 2022 Untitled #62, 2014 (Cover) Untitled #56 (detail), 2014 (Opposite page)

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