The Arts & Culture Journal

Mary Larsen was raised in New York where she studied printmaking and filmmaking. However, her real art education started whilst travelling through India and Italy where sketch books thickened with every twist in the road. Having also moved to Puerto Rico for love, Mary now resides in Miami having exhibited across America from San Francisco to New York.

This collection of paintings presents a wonderful array of colour and shape but unusually, it is the surface on which they are painted that has grabbed our attention. Each one of the canvases used is in fact an old floppy disk.

"When I purchased my new Mac," explains Mary, "I was faced with the inevitable disposal of hundreds of floppy discs I’d accumulated over the years. Being an environmentally conscious person, I dreaded sending them to landfills and realised they were perfect for making miniature paintings." 

This method of recycling brings a fresh and creative approach to a subject that for many is simply on repeat. Mary makes you sit up and take notice by creating something of beauty from a product destined to be hidden pollution.

Her eclectic palette paints engrossing miniature scenes; snapshots of a bigger picture. Red runs consistently through her work but it is treated in two very different ways. Firstly we have paintings of warmth; deep, autumnal reds merge into soft yellows, oranges and greens. The effect is calming and safe. Yet Mary's work can also portray the complexity of this colour. Married to blacks the red takes on a far more sinister ambience - fire, anger and oppression.

Yet despite the unusual canvases and complexity of her palette, Mary also offers a fresh take on how art can be created. Rather than basking in influences she had the following advice: "If you wait for inspiration,