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Mary Hale Visser teaches sculpture and computer imaging at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She has completed several largescale public and private commissions which are installed in the cities of Washington, D.C.; Sacramento, California; Austin, Texas; Lenexus, Kansas and Columbus, Ohio. Her work is in collections both public and private such as the Texas Relay System for the Deaf, NEA District Offices in Kansas City, Missouri, and Sprint Inc. Her work has been included in several multimedia and video presentations in the United States and in Europe, and her work has been featured in Texas Monthly, Artspace, Ceramics Monthly, Sculpture International and in the book, A Comprehensive Guide to Outdoor Sculpture in Texas.
Visser’s work has appeared in more than 110 juried exhibitions and she has received awards such as the “Design Excellence Award” from the City of Austin Design Commission, a Mellon Technology Fellowship, and a Mundy Fellowship. Most recently, Visser served as one of the jurors for INTERSCULPT’s International digital competition and exhibited work in the touring e-Form exhibition in China. She graduated from Ohio State University with an MFA in Studio Art.
Since 2005, Ms. Scherl has gained national recognition for creating “Mamorial”, a non-profit breast cancer initiative that offers healing and awareness through art. “Mamorial” has been exhibited widely, most notably in Miami during Art Basel and recently at New York University Medical Center during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
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ARTIST STATEMENT:
“How extraordinary it is to be human, struggling to communicate, to live a meaningful life, albeit so briefly. I search for the soul from whence all life comes. Myths, legends, stories and poems of individual human endeavors draw me in to search for that elusive spirit, the intangible made real. What is it that we see in an individual human action that changes the soul, thus, changes all people through the actions of this one being? What compelled that action that puts the individual at risk to change the whole community for the better?
“Heraea’s Women” demonstrates the sense of strategy, support, physical endurance; strength, stamina, grace and agility women athletes have shown in their pursuit of competitive sports. “Circle of Life” is a series ending where it begins, and repeating itself never ceasing, life continuing forever through the bodies of women. “Giving Birth to Oneself” is a personal statement on creating one’s own life just having come from the body of another human being.
As one can see body language is essential to my work and solid modeling allows me to incorporate the delicate gestures, subtle contours and complex structure of the body into a detailed rhythm of forms and gestures. For me as an artist, I have moved perceptually from viewing and using the human form as a sculptural form to one of using the human being as a metaphor for spiritual interaction that changes the community, thus, the spirit as it were being bodily present in the world. I am drawn to record these events, these examples of this human spirit. It is this elusive spirit that drives all human beings to create. It is this life force that I pursue in using the human body to recreate the individual effort.”
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