Mary Ann Peters: the edge becomes the center
June 15, 2024 - January 05, 2025
Seattle artist Mary Ann Peters (born 1949, Beaumont, Texas) finds and responds to overlooked narratives through a research-based, multidisciplinary practice that spans almost forty years. Peters’s recent work engages with accounts of displacement, including diasporic histories of the Middle East. Visiting historical and photographic archives, including those in Lebanon, France, and Mexico, the artist examines minute details within records or images to bring to light new information or to contradict mainstream accounts of events. She contextualizes this research as a second-generation Lebanese American and interprets it visually through a range of mediums including painting, sculpture, and installation.
The artist’s first solo museum exhibition, the edge becomes the center brings together for the first time Peters’s series this trembling turf and presents it alongside a new site-specific installation. this trembling turf encompasses ten abstract drawings the artist crafted by applying thin strokes of white ink to black clayboard. The installation continues her ongoing impossible monuments series, large-scale works of disparate materials and forms that memorialize disregarded details of sociopolitical events. Peters writes, “I define an impossible monument as something that deserves reverence but by virtue of its incidental nature would never be elevated to the status of a monument.” Together, these bodies of work ask viewers to consider which narratives are written into history and which are erased.
Mary Ann Peters: the edge becomes the center is organized by Alexis L. Silva, Curatorial Assistant.
Lead individual support provided by Jennifer Potter and Hugh Straley. Generous additional support provided by Frye Members. Media sponsorship by KUOW.
Installation view of Mary Ann Peters: the edge becomes the center, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, June 15, 2024–January 5, 2025. Photo: Jueqian Fang
Mary Ann Peters. this trembling turf (the shallows), 2018. White ink on clayboard. 60 x 48 in. Frye Art Museum, Purchased with funds provided by Seattle Art Fair, 2019.005
Mary Ann Peters. impossible monument: gilded, 2024. Wood, laminated survival blankets, glycerin, keys, keyhole plates, ribbons, aramid honeycomb, oval frame. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist. Installation view of Mary Ann Peters: the edge becomes the center, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, June 15, 2024–January 5, 2025. Photo: Jueqian Fang
Mary Ann Peters. impossible monument: gilded (detail), 2024. Wood, laminated survival blankets, glycerin, keys, keyhole plates, ribbons, aramid honeycomb, oval frame. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist. Installation view of Mary Ann Peters: the edge becomes the center, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, June 15, 2024–January 5, 2025. Photo: Jueqian Fang
Mary Ann Peters. this trembling turf (echo), 2018. White ink on black clayboard. 60 x 48 in. Private collection. Image courtesy of James Harris Gallery. Photo: Rafael Soldi
Mary Ann Peters. this trembling turf (the shadows), 2019. White ink on black clayboard. 60 x 48 in. Collection of Seattle University. Image courtesy of James Harris Gallery. Photo: Rafael Soldi
Mary Ann Peters. this trembling turf (the hollow), 2021. White ink on black clayboard. 60 x 48 in. Collection of the Seattle Convention Center. Image courtesy of James Harris Gallery. Photo: Rafael Soldi
Mary Ann Peters. this trembling turf (the waters), 2017. White ink on black clayboard, 60 x 48 in. Private collection. Image courtesy of James Harris Gallery. Photo: Rafael Soldi