MARY D. OTT

About the Artist

Mary D. Ott is a painter and printmaker who creates art to convey her sense of beauty to others. She divides her time between painting, printing, and scouring the outdoors for subjects. Design and color are paramount in her work and she has developed a style of abstract painting that comprises squiggly lines on a color field. Most of these lines are vertical; some are diagonal. Some paintings resemble fields of grass or other natural subjects but most of Ott’s works are nonrepresentational. 

Many of her prints are monotypes, including those she creates using inked ornamental grasses as stencils. Some of these non-representational etchings resemble her paintings and are composed of curved lines on a solid field of color. Her representational prints include etchings, lithographs, screen prints, and photogravures. These are based on digital photos that she adjusts to obtain a subtle interplay of light and dark. Many of these images are arboreal.

Ott grew up in a family of engineers and educators, leading her to earn her masters in physics and PhD in education at the University of Chicago. After completing her doctorate, she spent two decades developing physics courses, teaching, and researching at Cornell and then the University of Maryland. Living in Silver Spring, MD, she began taking painting classes, eventually moving into printmaking and the path to being a self-employed artist. 

For further information please visit her website at marydott.com.

Her most recent solo exhibitions at Touchstone include:

• Nature’s Bounty (2023)

• Branching Out (2019)

• Metallics (2017)