Born in 1979 in rural West Virginia, Mary Carroll spent her youth helping her family work their farm and land in an isolated area. She had no television or other modern distractions and was encouraged to entertain herself with objects in nature. Left with the workings of her imagination and observations of the world around her, she translated her understanding into paintings. She continues this practice today, gaining much of her creativity from the natural world. Her figurative realism paintings and drawings offer a narrative that echoes a provocative daydream, communicating both the human disposition and our relationship to the land.
Carroll received her Master of Fine Arts degree in both painting and art history from Radford University, graduating in 2010 Summa Cum Laude, and was awarded the University’s best graduate thesis. Her work is in the permanent collection of the New Salem Museum of Fine Art in Salem, Massachusetts, and has been exhibited at Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art in Wisconsin, Modern Eden Gallery in San Francisco, Kirk Gallery in Denmark, and The Taubman Museum of Art in Virginia. She has been awarded by the Portrait Society of America (2023, 2022, 2019, 2018,) the International ARC Salon (2022,2019, 2018,) and has won The Bold Brush Award (2023,) as well as The Artist’s Magazine Competitions (2023, 2022) and International Artist’s Magazine (2023, 2022.) You can find her work published by these magazines and others like American Art Collector and Fine Art Connoisseur. Carroll lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.
