Mary Taylor
Full Collections
Bio
Mary Taylor is a New Zealand artist born in Devonport and currently based on Auckland’s West Coast. Mary specialises in limited edition etchings and original paintings. She is especially passionate about native birds and plants, as evidenced in her prints of kōwhai flowers, NZ rata, nīkau palms, little ruru, kererū (NZ woodpigeon), and tūi, to name a few.
Mary’s etchings and paintings draw inspiration and subject matter from New Zealand's urban and bush life, from unique flora and native birds to cityscapes, beach and seascapes, and pristine wildernesses. Her style can be described as rich, meticulous, rhythmic, and celebratory, while always grounded in realism.
Mary’s etchings are a time-consuming and manual process following a traditional method of hand drawing on Zinc plates—acid etching followed by aqua-tinting or hand-colouring. Clients especially appreciate the individual hand-colouring with watercolour paints, meaning that each print has its own, unique quality. Today, Mary’s original paintings are also gaining popularity, loved for their illustrative style and the luminous quality she draws from the paint.
Formerly a teacher, Mary has worked as a fulltime, professional artist since 1983. The major part of her time is devoted to her etchings and original paintings. She has also been known to write and illustrate books. Her book Old Blue: The Rarest Bird in the World (Ashton Scholastic, 1993) documented the story of DOC conservationists saving the Chatham Islands robin from the brink of extinction to great reviews, winning the AIM non-fiction award in 1994.
Mary lives in a wilderness of exceptional beauty with lush bush and rugged coastlines. She works in a studio surrounded by native forest and regularly travels throughout New Zealand seeking subject matter for her work. Mary’s work is held in private collections in New Zealand and internationally.