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7work that I’m doing for this show, I didn’t
realize, but there’s a lot of green and gold
within the compositions. I get fascinated
with a color and then I’m interested and
attracted to that palette as I’m trying to set
up a painting idea.”
Nancy in Green is a prime example and
depicts a friend, Nancy, who Sauer met
10 years ago while working as a studio
assistant for Jeff Koons. “She worked there
at the same time that I did, and she had
this apartment in Brooklyn,” recalls Sauer.
“[It has this] hand-stenciled wall design.
It’s at least a 15-foot-long hallway that
she painted and it’s absolutely gorgeous.
When I was at her apartment, I was super
struck with this mural that she painted,
and I had to photograph her in front of it.
The pattern and the color palette, it all just
really came together.”
Painting for Sauer can be almost a form
of mediation, it’s something she cannot live
without and is a respite among the chaos.
She says, “The interiors go back to this idea
of how the nostalgia makes me feel...this is
how life would be if it was idealized. I feel
like I do a similar thing with the paintings
of children. I’m not painting them with alltheir Barbie dolls on the floor. I’m searching
for this type of idealization that romanti-
cizes the idea, so when I’m doing a painting,
it really centers me and really brings me to
this place where I can escape.”MARY SAUER
When: November 5 - 30 , 2021
Where: Sloane Merrill Gallery,
75 Charles Street, Boston, MA 02114
Information: ( 6 17) 22 7-177 5 ,
http://www.sloanemerrillgallery.comThe Coffee Shop, oil on panel, 1 2 x 1 2"