Meet South Florida Artist & Curator Mary Tidy-Coyle

Mary Tidy-Coyle is a nationally showing/published artist and curator. She is originally from Philadelphia, PA, where she received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, and her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Currently Tidy-Coyle lives and works in South Florida as a professor teaching Drawing, Painting & Art History, while continuing to produce and show her work.

“In my work I am interested in how an environment can influence who we are, and how personal experiences shift perception. By sifting an experience through the creative process – I can record, document and reflect.” –Artist Statement

Mary has many series of works, some of which include her Color Series, a body of work that explores the emotive affect of color. She has another we love called Palette Series, which is a collection of abstract painted works on paper, based on restriction and limitation; reducing the palette to a few color choices, and only working within a set time frame.

Our favorite is Region Series, an on-going collection of landscape paintings based on the artists travels and living experiences in different regions of the United States. Seeing such diverse landscapes and environments inspired her creatively while pondering the current environmental climate. “The idea of a contemporary artist approaching the landscape – a historically traditional subject matter – may seem irrelevant, but I disagree. The landscape has never been more significant, as it is a today. The various works are not of any specific location, but an idyllic filtration of my memories and feelings of an experience. The series includes the West, Northeast, and Southeast US,” said Mary Tidy-Coyle.

Mary is also known for her unique Video & Mixed Media work. “In my past artworks I have been a creator of fiction- a storyteller, giving my audience just enough to compose their own narratives. As artist, filmmaker and actor I adorn many disguises in my video work. By inserting myself into an invented world my performance as ‘actor’ allows for the re-invention of self, commenting on issues of identity and gender. In my constructed collages and mixed media paintings I juxtapose people, places and things, relying on imagination & memory to create an unknown reality; leaving my audience to muse.”

“In Mary Coyle’s reoccurring role as a suited man, Coyle inserts herself into the work as ‘actor,’ allowing for the re-invention of self through stereotypes. Issues of identity and gender are brought into question. Her sets are recreated miniature worlds, which she digitally inserts herself into.” Credit to Benny Benassi ‘Satisfaction’.

For more information about this fascinating artist, for sales information, commissions or general inquires, please visit: https://mccoyle.com/