Mary has depicted the pretty rocks (Aru) and pools of her husband's country in Berkley River. Mary’s art details the rock formations along the Berkley River as part of her ongoing connection to her husband and his country. Having lived and walked the river length with her husband and their children, Mary is acutely familiar with the geography and geology of place. Her swirling circle formation show the eddys of small rock pools and the rock markers along the river banks.
Here she played as a girl amongst the ‘aru’- rocks and stones, fishing, swimming and telling stories.
Occasional trees, palms and bush flowers add to her compositions of stones and rockholes signifiying a particular memory and place of importance.
Her inspiration came from the stories told to her by her husband. “He was a good old man - my husband. He told me stories while we hunted for fish and turtle.”
Born in Wyndham in 1939, Taylor grew up in Oombulgurri, (formerly Forrest River Mission), with her parents and grandparents, King David and Ethel. Today Taylor is one of the Traditional Owners for the Balanggarra Native Title area, which extends from Kalumburu in the north Kimberley to her grandparents country along the western border of the Cambridge Gulf in the east. In 2005 she moved to Kalumburu to be with two of her children. Classed as ‘emerging’ by the art industry, recognition of her work has slowly been gaining momentum. Fortuitously at the very beginning of her
career she was selected for the 27th NATSIAA at the Museum and Gallery of Northern Territory.
Since 2010 she has been exhibited in gallery group shows, prominently featured at the Kira Kiro art centre stall at the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair, selected for the 2012 TAFE Central Gallery Revealed Exhibition of Emerging Indigenous Artists from WA, a finalist in the Port Hedland Art Award, and has had an artwork purchased by the Artbank Australia collection.