Introducing The Artist Mary Collis

Kenya Fri 20-08-2010

Introducing The Artist Mary Collis
By AfricanColours.com

Mary Collis is a second generation Kenyan who was born in Nairobi. She ventured into fine art in 1980 and has moved from figurative to abstract art. Her work is a response to light in her surroundings, her most intense feelings as well as her observation of the changing colours. She is exraordinary with colours and attempts to paint the “colour” of sounds.

My Valley in October by Mary Collis | Oil on canvas | 107mmX142mm

She does not paint horizons, Zebras or Maasais' although she did start out in 1980 by painting what she knew: her children, her garden and the road that leads to her home. "When I started teaching myself about art, there was nothing written about African art, nothing at all that I could find. So I had to read what I could." She continues reading about art and artists every day.

As a young girl, she responded to the works of abstract impressionists like Rothko. "Although I would never have even presumed to have started painting like them, it took me 20 years to feel that I could start painting abstracts."

In 2009 she worked with Pride of Kenya Campaign, an initiative to save lions from extinction in Kenya, to help create one of fifty beautiful life-size lions decorated by artists and community groups. The Pride of Kenya campaign was seeking to draw attention to the risk that, if nothing is to protect them, lions could become an extinct species in the country.

Her magenta pink lion was named the Androcles’ Lion, after the lion in Roman times that had a painful thorn removed from his paw by the runaway slave, Androcles.

Androcole Lionby Mary Colis

The Androcle lion by Mary Collis. Photo from Prideofkenya.co.ke

When asked why she paints, Mary responded, "Because it's the best thing to do in the world. And probably it's the only thing that I know how to do really well. It's a passion. My life would be quite empty without it. And it's not just the painting, it's looking at other peoples, it's being around it, it's going to museums and it's reading about it. It consumes me."

View Mary Collis portfolio here.

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Related Links

Meet Androcles, the WildlifeDirect Lion

Pride of Kenya

On drive to save lions from death

Your Comments

margaretta wa gacheru: So glad you have shared Mary Collis' amazing colour combinations on your website. she's someone who epitomizes what colour in Kenya really means--bright, bold, beautiful and quite breath taking... beyond van gogh and monet, her sense of colour is distinctive because it is specifically Kenyan!!! i love her stuff, so thank you for sharing her genius!