“....what really makes these works so effective is the optical trickery they employ. By the subtle shading of the squares and a clever manipulation of the black lines separating them, Hagerty creates a beguiling impression of three dimensionality. As you stand there, each plane seems to push out from the one 'behind' it, so that each painting has its own aura of quiet movement and mystery.”
The Sydney-born, Canberra-based Marie Hagerty, painter, sculptor, and teacher, has been exhibiting regularly since the late 1980s in Canberra (with Ben Grady Gallery and Nancy Sever Gallery), Sydney (with the Olsen Gallery), and Melbourne (with Christine Abrahams Gallery and Karen Woodbury Gallery). She was the subject of solo survey exhibitions at Canberra Museum and Art Gallery in 2007 and 2016.
Hagerty’s works have been included in curated group exhibitions across Australia, most notably at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Museum and Art Gallery, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Drill Hall Gallery (the Australian National University), and Glassworks in Canberra; the National Gallery of Victoria, Heide Museum of Modern Art, RMIT University, and the Ian Potter Museum of Art (the University of Melbourne) in Melbourne; Australian Design Centre and the SH Ervin Gallery in Sydney; the Gallery of Modern Art / Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane; as well as numerous regional and tertiary galleries. Most notably, in 2021, Marie Hagerty’s works were included in the National Gallery of Australia’s landmark Know My Name exhibition.
Marie is the winner of Canberra Art Prize (2003), the John McCaughey Memorial Prize (NGV, Melbourne, 2004), Conrad Jupiter’s Art Prize (HOTA, Gold Coast, 2005), Calleen Art Award (Cowra Regional Gallery, 2023) as well as the recipient of numerous Australian and International grants and residencies. She was also the finalist in the Moet & Chandon Art Prize (1995), Geelong Contemporary Art Prize (2004, 2016), Wynne Prize (AGNSW, 2005, 2006, 2007), and Guirguis Art Prize (Art Gallery of Ballarat, 2019).
Marie’s works have been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Gallery of Modern Art / Queensland Art Gallery, Art, Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Artbank, Canberra Museum and Art Gallery, regional galleries of Ballarat, Bendigo, and Gold Coast, as well as tertiary, corporate, and private collections across Australia and abroad.
Hagerty has a very effective and curiously unusual hybrid approach, both in her techniques of painting, employing traditional oils and modern acrylic, as well as in her conceptual framework. She seamlessly combines within a non figurative composition seemingly figurative elements realised within a high degree of verisimilitude to surfaces and textures. The inclusion of a woman's leg, face or torso, usher the paintings into an ambiguous realm, where there is a perception that some sort of feminist narrative is implied by not explicitly stated. Above all, her paintings display a high degree of visual intelligence in their subtle play of push and pull optics across the sensuous rolling surface.
“....what really makes these works so effective is the optical trickery they employ. By the subtle shading of the squares and a clever manipulation of the black lines separating them, Hagerty creates a beguiling impression of three dimensionality. As you stand there, each plane seems to push out from the one 'behind' it, so that each painting has its own aura of quiet movement and mystery.”