Work in Progress: Mary Stephenson

For Mary Stephenson, ‘painting is about pressure: two things in contact with each other, the intimacy of the intention.’ In her latest works, Stephenson paints the tender blend of pain and play that underpins intimacy, childhood memories, architecture and seashells.

Ahead of her first art fair presentation with Chapter NY at Frieze New York, Stephenson discusses leaning into discomfort, the ‘camaraderie’ of paint and how she sees her new, small paintings as ‘hot flings’ and their larger counterparts as ‘long relationships’.

Livia Russell Can you talk about your new paintings for Frieze New York?

Mary Stephenson My practice stretches loads of different muscles all at once. In my works for Frieze New York, there’s a real range in my mark-making: from the crassly architectural and rigidly linear to more organic, softer, amorphous forms. One lends itself to the other. There’s a greed to my mark-making – I suppose I just want it all. 

LR This range exists within your paintings, too, where the linear melts into something softer, more liquid. Can you talk about this exchange?

MS A lot of the time these lines come through because there’s a real need to anchor a feeling, to tether it. There’s a kind of catharsis to my works that are more architectural. There’s only so much you can know about what’s going to happen. That’s why I call paint my wingman. It can be very lonely in the studio and paint brings a kind of camaraderie in pain. But paint is also a total witch. It really has its own way. That’s true of the unconscious, too. It’s this slippery thing that we try to take hold of, but we can’t.

Most days, I get to the studio at 8am and stay for about ten hours. It’s all about pace. You have to be patient and impatient in equal measure. You have to run into the studio and think that your painting is the most important thing in the world, and also know that things will come as they come. I find myself not breathing a lot of the time when I’m working. 

Paint is a total witch. It really has its own way. Mary Stephenson

LR Can you talk about your shift away from the figurative?

MS When the human figuration left my paintings, buildings and architectural forms stepped in. This was a major shift for me. I think it was a confidence thing. I was drawing figures because I wanted to show people that I was a ‘good painter’. I was populating canvases in a really dramatic way. With these architectural forms, you can step into them, I can step into them. Once the figures left, there was more space in the canvas, and I couldn’t hide anymore. Suddenly, I really had to interrogate the surface, and the voice of paint became much louder in the studio. The way I apply paint has changed dramatically. You can’t deny what the paint is doing.

A lot of the time the architecture ones end up being portraits. It’s an architecture of an internal world, of feelings. I am the most emotionally attached to these paintings because there’s a depiction that needs to be met. I never work from photos because they become hurdles to get to the reality of a feeling. 

LR Is the idea of performance and character still important to these new works?

MS It’s fun when a painting is sassy, like Slip (2025) that will be at Frieze New York. It was so immediate and slippery, and I was like, how dare you be so sassy in the room with me, Mary, who’s just here gnawing on nuts all day in front of the heater! There’s something very exciting about that happening. 

I have notes on my wall that say ‘Don’t make polite paintings!’, ‘Don’t design paintings!’ If I fixate on the finished idea of a painting, I stop exploring and it becomes design work. I think the performance of the paint is really important. My paintings are like cathartic playgrounds, where mark-making almost has the mechanism of a toy. I’m working out spatially what reality I am trying to hold on to, what kind of pictorial thing I’m trying to evoke from inside me. The playfulness of making a cheeky painting that’s also sad is so exciting: this axis is the epitome of an amazing work, where both things weigh heavily.

I never work from photos: they become hurdles to get to the reality of a feeling. Mary Stephenson

A lot of the time when I’m making the works, I think in a cinematic way. I’m directing how I’m going to get the reality out. When the work’s finished, you’re like, ‘Cut! it’s done. We got it, that made sense.’ I think the unconscious is cinematic. If you’re trying to capture a film still on a flat canvas, you have to work quickly, otherwise it disappears.

LR How does your painting change across different scales, from the more intimate and ‘amorphous’ works to the larger ‘architectural’ works?

MS I’ve always jumped between large and small works. How you take in a work is about consumption. The large ones feel like a big meal, they need more time. The little ones are like canapés, you can take it all in visually. The smaller ones are harder in some ways, because you can’t hide. 

My small paintings are hot flings; my big paintings are relationships. They’re longer, more painful. When I finish them, it’s like a relationship dying. Painting is like grief in many ways because you have this expectation of what you want it to be, but often, the world that you’re creating becomes something else, and actually, it’s for the better. 

In Soft Shell (2025), I place the amorphous figure from one of my smaller paintings within a larger form. Where the four colours meet on the right, there’s an interesting shift. The painting sits in an uncomfortable space – that’s one of the reasons why I’ve included it in the fair presentation. 

LR Can you talk about the layers in your paintings?

MS I only really started mixing my own colours during my RA degree. Before that, I didn’t even call myself a painter, I just thought I was someone who used paint to get ideas out. When I layer paint, it’s really about peeling back. It’s a reverse unveiling: when a veil is put down on the canvas, it’s taken away from the unconscious. The more layers in the painting, the deeper the excavation.

In my linen works, I use a lot of zinc white, which is a very thin pigment, and it means you can tint a pigment. I use very, very thin washes and lots of very soft brushes that allow me to use paint almost like water. I’ve got buckets of rags that I boil and use to wipe down the canvases. Painting isn’t about putting something on the surface of the canvas. It’s about pressure: two things in contact with each other, the intimacy of the intention. Like in Blue, Heart Throb (2025) it comes down to a thin sliver of blue down the middle, which makes the painting throb in a very particular way. 

LR In your shift towards abstraction, did you have any guiding influences?

MS Every time I see a [John Singer] Sargent painting, I’m in awe of the paint, it’s so luscious, luminous and confident – sassy! A good show is when you leave jealous and run to the studio. The one work that has always stayed with me is Félix González-Torres’s photograph of an unmade bed on a billboard [Untitled, 1992]. It’s so intimate on such a grand scale. I had read that it is only rarely put up, but then I was in New York, walking down the High Line, and there it was. I just burst into tears. I felt like one of the luckiest people in the world.

LR Can you talk about the intimacy of the shell forms in your new work?

MS The umbilical cords that come across my larger paintings are pulling on a feeling, pulling on a conversation. We grew up in this house that was basically falling down, and when we sold it, a year and a bit ago, I went into every single room, climbed in the cupboards, smelled the carpets. There was so much from that space that was traumatic and interesting. 

Painting’s about pressure: two things in contact with each other, the intimacy of the intention. Mary Stephenson

There was a plan chest that had a drawer full of shells. The shell is a kind of organic building: it’s about wanting to be held, these parameters that make us feel safe. I’m working on Twin Shell (2025) at the moment, which is about me and my identical twin sister. I use a chalk primed canvas, which collects the paint in a seam. I’m always interested in these isolated kinds of energy that come from a painting. There’s a glow from underneath. These are the most figurative works I’m making at the moment. I find them deeply uncomfortable. They’re leaning into a conversation that is worth exploring.

LR How do you see your practice developing?

I have a note on my studio wall that says ‘drawing always helps’. I never get round to it, and then when I do draw, I get so many ideas. It’s the most immediate way of getting anything out of your body. It’s intimidating picking up a paint brush and starting on a big canvas. I need to manage the pace at which I work, and whenever I’m chewing my brain off in the studio, doing a drawing, I could end up having ideas for a whole show in one sitting. Everyone should draw – it’s the quickest form of therapy, and it’s cheaper.

Further Information

Frieze New York, The Shed, 7 – 11 May, 2025. Tickets are on sale – don’t miss out, buy yours now. Alternatively, become a member to enjoy premier access, exclusive guided tours and more.

BUY TICKETS

A dedicated online Frieze Viewing Room will open in the week before the fair, offering audiences a first look at the presentations and the opportunity to engage with the fair remotely. 

Frieze New York is supported by global lead partner Deutsche Bank, continuing its legacy of celebrating artistic excellence on an international scale.

^{Main Image: Mary Stephenson in her studio. Courtesy: the artist and Chapter NY}