Mary Lou Stewart in Conversation with Raud Fine Art Gallery
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For over four decades, Mary Lou Stewart has developed a studio practice rooted in process, pattern, and the slow unfolding of visual structure. Her work invites viewers to move beyond the rapid pace of contemporary image culture and engage in a more attentive way of seeing.
In her most recent body of work, Stewart introduces a compelling element of transformation. Drawing from paintings and drawings created throughout her career — some dating back as early as 1976 — she repurposes these earlier works as material for new compositions. Sections are cut, layered, and reassembled, forming intricate surfaces and, at times, dimensional structures. What once existed as independent works now becomes part of a new visual dialogue. Through this process of recycling and reconstruction, Stewart quite literally paints with her own history, allowing fragments of past decades to re-emerge in new and unexpected forms.
Interview
Raud Fine Art Gallery: Mary Lou, you have had a long and distinguished career as both an artist and educator. For readers encountering your work for the first time, could you share a bit about how your practice developed and what continues to drive you to paint?
Mary Lou Stewart:
I have always approached painting as a process of discovery rather than a predetermined outcome. Early in my career, I was drawn to the possibilities of abstraction — the way gesture, pattern, and structure could communicate something that words often cannot. Over time, my practice became less about arriving at an image and more about exploring relationships: between order and chaos, repetition and variation, structure and spontaneity.
What continues to drive me is curiosity. Each painting is a space where I can test ideas, respond to earlier work, and discover something new. Painting allows me to slow down and pay attention — and in many ways, that attention becomes the subject of the work itself.
RFAG: Your paintings often feel layered and meditative. Could you describe how a typical work begins and how it evolves in the studio?
Mary Lou Stewart:
My process tends to unfold in stages. Many works begin with an underpainting — gestural marks, washes of color, or fragments of earlier drawings. In my recent work, I also incorporate ink drawings of textures that become paper cutouts. These cutouts taken from are then layered over the surface creating an underpainting.
These fragments are placed and adjusted as the composition develops, adding depth, texture, and a sense of history to the work. They create a bridge between past and present, allowing earlier moments of my practice to remain active within the painting.
I am interested in how order can emerge from something that initially appears chaotic. The surface develops gradually through repetition, layering, and adjustment. Often the painting tells me what it needs next. It becomes a conversation between the structure I introduce and the spontaneity that remains visible beneath it.
That balance between control and openness is essential. I want the viewer to sense both the discipline of the structure and the freedom of the earlier gestures that remain embedded in the work.
RFGA: Several of your most influential bodies of work were developed during your sabbaticals. How did those periods of focused studio time shape your artistic direction?
Mary Lou Stewart:
The sabbaticals were incredibly important for my development as an artist. Teaching is a deeply rewarding profession, but it is also demanding. The sabbaticals gave me extended periods where the studio could become the center of my daily life again.
During those times I was able to work more experimentally and allow ideas to unfold without interruption. Some of the series that emerged from those periods — including the Scroll Series — became turning points in my practice. They allowed me to expand the scale of my work and deepen my investigation of pattern, repetition, and visual rhythm.
Those projects also reinforced something important for me: that artistic ideas often require time and patience to fully develop.
RFAG: You spent many years teaching and mentoring young artists at Elmhurst University. Do you miss teaching?
Mary Lou Stewart:
There are certainly aspects of teaching that I miss very much. Working with students — seeing their ideas develop and helping them find their own voice — was always meaningful.
Teaching also kept me engaged with new perspectives and questions about art. Students often approach problems in ways that are unexpected, and that energy can be very inspiring.
At the same time, stepping away from teaching has given me something equally valuable: time. Time to work in the studio, reflect on the trajectory of my practice, and explore ideas that may take longer to unfold.
So while I miss the community of teaching, I also appreciate this new phase where the studio has become my primary focus again.
RFAG: Looking ahead, what are your hopes or goals for this next phase of your artistic career?
Mary Lou Stewart:
My primary goal is simply to continue working and exploring new directions. Each series opens the door to the next question.
I am also excited to see the work reach new audiences and contexts. Art develops meaning through dialogue — through the conversations it creates with viewers, curators, and other artists.
If my work can encourage someone to pause, reflect, and engage more deeply with visual experience, then I feel it has done something meaningful.