What type of photography does she do?
She is known for exploring the tactile and formal qualities of the printed book and its potential for abstraction. Her photos are alive with questions – about what we do and don’t see and the stories we tell. Yet the spirit of her work provides a reflective response, a respite, from a noisy and chaotic world. By emphasizing the unique “aura” and materiality of printed matter, Bartley’s work offers a celebration of textural and tactile properties, a particularly potent act in this increasingly digital age.
Examples of her work:
These photos were taken by Mary during the lockdown due to covid 19. She set herself a challenge where she would pick 6/7 objects that had similarities which she would then photograph every day of the lockdown in different positions/ways. The objects she had chosen were very basic everyday objects which would are usually just used and ignored. Mary managed to make these objects look interesting and she was very creative with how she changed every photo every day whether it was the lighting, angles and positioning.
Personally, her most interesting picture out of the collection of images she had produced was this one:
My reasoning for this is because it’s the most creative one yet. She has used one of her objects (toilet paper) to create outlines which if you analyse the other pictures, they are very clearly the objects she had chosen. The use of light as well to emphasise the shadows and colour for example the orange soap.