I am an interdisciplinary artist hailing from the Central Coast of California currently pursuing a BFA in Art with a concentration in Photography & Video at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA. I began making images in my early teens when I picked up my dad’s old film camera and began experimenting with analog photography. Through my work, I explore the idea of humans vs. nature and how urbanization and technology are changing how we see the natural world. I enjoy the slower, more methodical methods of making photographs and prints, so most of the work you will see of mine is made through a film-based process or traditional and experimental printmaking techniques. My work often highlights the mundane or seemingly boring bits of everyday life, and gives them weight and importance. 

Although I didn’t consciously intend to make them the subject of a series at the time, I began to make my “Light Study” images in 2016 when I moved back home from a year of living in Chicago. After living independently in an urban area, moving back to my family’s rural home at times felt isolating and mundane. It forced me to look at the familiar in my world in a new way. I started to pay attention to the way light behaved in the house at certain times of the day, and recorded the abstract shadow patterns both on my phone and with my camera. This is a practice that I continue to this day. While I have decided to keep some of these images as photographs, certain ones hold a graphic quality for me that can be best translated as etchings. The images in the etching part of this series so far were all created using phone photos that were then transferred to a light-sensitive etching plate, and then printed. Because the photos were taken on a lower-quality phone camera, the pixels can be seen in the print. This intersection between digital and hand-made media is something that I hope to explore more in my work for years to come. The series has gained new relevance and layers for me over the past few months. The California shelter-in-place order has, like many other artists, prompted me to again be forced to create with what I have. This feeling of being “stuck at home” is familiar, yet so different from my previous experience. I also am getting married in September and starting a new home with my husband, so these images now have a new layer of nostalgia as I prepare to leave my parents’ home behind to make my own way.

Mary Maclane (She, Her, Hers) | @marymaclanephoto | marymaclaneartist.com