Mary Hortman

Mary Hortman

Artist Information

Mary Hortman

  • Medi­um: Painting
  • Style: Abstract, Fig­u­ra­tive, Land­scape, Still Life

Mary Hort­man is a Texas artist and an Ari­zona artist cur­rent­ly liv­ing in her home town of Athens, Texas.

Mary is self-taught to a large extent, but has stud­ied pri­vate­ly with a num­ber of rec­og­nized artists, includ­ing most recent­ly Car­olyn Ander­son. Though she is most rec­og­nized for her por­traits and fig­ures, she also paints any and all sub­ject mat­ter, includ­ing a bat­tle scene com­mis­sion.
While liv­ing in Ari­zona, Mary showed her work at the “Cel­e­bra­tion of Fine Art” and “Ari­zona Fine Art Expo”, both in Scotts­dale. In addi­tion, she showed at Eliz­a­beth Hain Gallery in Scotts­dale, Tohono Keh Gallery in Tubac, and in Gallery 7000 in Tuc­son. She also taught water­col­or at the She­mer Art Cen­ter in Phoenix.

Also while liv­ing in Ari­zona, she was fea­tured in Inter­na­tion­al Artist mag­a­zine in the “Mas­ter Painters of the World” section.

Since mov­ing back to Texas, she has begun teach­ing work­shops both in Athens and in oth­er cities. Though most of her art is cur­rent­ly sold to pri­vate col­lec­tors, she con­tin­ues to show in gal­leries, the most recent of which is the Van Ward Gallery in Ogun­quit, Maine.

I am com­pelled to paint. Some­times I love it, some­times I hate it, but I am com­pelled to paint. I don’t pre­tend to know why I have to paint. Some might say it’s a call­ing, while oth­ers would con­tend that it is a ran­dom genet­ic dis­po­si­tion, this com­pul­sion to put paint on a can­vas. I believe it reflects a deep need to com­mu­ni­cate things that can­not be artic­u­lat­ed with words; a need, whether stem­ming from sor­row or from seren­i­ty, to com­mu­ni­cate an emo­tion­al response, and to evoke one in return. My com­pul­sion is to visu­al­ly con­vey a moment of shared human­i­ty between view­er and painter; a land­scape rem­i­nis­cent of child­hood mem­o­ry, made gold­en by the pas­sage of time…a roman­tic fig­ure whose pres­ence wraps one’s soul in quilt­ed com­fort. That mutu­al know­ing moment, whether fleet­ing or lin­ger­ing — that is my bliss.

View In Person At Our Art Gallery in Tyler 

Featured Art