Mary Orrom - background

Mary Orrom has lived in Great Missenden for many years, first with her late filmmaker husband Michael Orrom and her four daughters, and now with her partner Bob Drake.

She started out making films for Paul Rotha Productions in Soho. She then went on to study sculpture at St Martins School of Art in the 1950s where Anthony Caro was one of her tutors, and then much later in the 70’s, silversmithing at Harrow College. Always an inquiring mind has driven Mary to learn more and more techniques and latterly went to study ceramics at Amersham College.

Mary works with forms from which the surface emerges. Looking carefully at her ceramic works, her finger marks tell us of her presence in the heavy grog clay, and manage to be both restrained and sure. Her ceramic heads become the viewers, secrets locked behind expressions, and we are both the watcher and the watched.

Her use of scrap brings out the comedic in her sculpture. There are owls that seem to have old kitchen appliances as eyes, and a cocky tilt of the head. There are animals made from anything that catches her eye. Found flints represent dancers or animals; they need no additions. Wall-based collage and assemblages from found objects are carefully pieced together to create the beginnings of a story - we are there to finish it.

Each new piece has a relevance that embraces the new, as well as imbuing in it a sense of her sculptural and personal heritage.

This will be an interesting exhibition because the context of her work (mainly in the garden) where it seems absolutely right, will move into the sterile surroundings of a white gallery space. Like children who have to learn independence, her work will take on a new life when it moves away from its home surroundings. This exhibition is a celebration of Mary’s work in all the forms that it takes and we are extremely proud to be able to show it in this gallery.