Maryalice Huggins
Altered and vanished life are reoccurring themes in Huggins’s work. Through abstraction Huggins creates a narrative about evolution and climate change in the natural world. Her interest in history inspires artistic interpretations of spiritual beliefs and traditions of diverse cultures, both ancient and current.​
Gallery Representation
In 2017 Huggins established a gallery in Newport Rhode Island where for 3 years she presented her own art as well as the work of other artists. In 2021 Huggins was represented by Andrea Keogh Gallery of Art and Design, in Newport Rhode Island. In 2021 her work on paper was included in “An Eye for Color,” with renowned women artists: Vanessa Bell, Prunella Clough, Kazuko Inoue, Joan Mitchell, Alison Turnbull and Emma Williams. Solo shows of work in sculpture and paper included: “Transition: The Changing Earth”in 2022, and “Clay and Gold” in 2023.
Topographical Maps on Paper
​Huggins constructs topographical maps using fibrous Asian mulberry paper she manipulates into 3 -dimensional single sheets with ragged boarders. Mediums such as graphite, gouache and inks depict aerial views of degraded landscapes of barren mountain ranges, evaporated lakes, ravines and sunken rocky depressions of former rivers. Unidentifiable new forms of winged life soar above, suggesting life in transition.
Drawings
Huggins strives to achieve a sense of order though a keen sense of balance and space. Large gestural drawings, with bold energetic strokes convey chaotic energy. Graphite, gouache and ink are used to create images of plants and animals displaced or in flux.
Multimedia Sculpture
Blue wrapped mummified men represent ancient burial traditions of seafaring phallus worshipers. At the bottom of the ocean his body is in the process of decomposing as he transitions to the next life, joining the mystical, aquatic underworld.
Ceramics
Huggins’s interest in history, inspired a series of stoneware resting human heads. They are intended to be placed on/near gravestones of departed ancestors as a way of expressing forward connection. Others in the form of animal heads, shaped to fit into the crevices of early New England stone-wall farm corals, are talismans for good fortune and attachment to fertile land.
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Huggins’s stoneware clay slabs are loose, twisted, bulging, precariously near collapsing and sometimes flattened into shapes suggestive of fossils, bones and bleached ocean coral. Pierced, elongated plant-like forms painted in bright greens and reds, represent the verdant world we need to preserve for survival.
Photography
Living by the ocean inspirers Huggins’s art. A deflating sand covered black balloon found on a beach walk, resulted in ten lighthearted, seemingly floating, gestural photographs.
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Windswept patterns formed in beach sand, could be mistaken for satellite images of distant planet surfaces. Shades of grey and black tones lend depth and project shimmering light, the effect derived from printing on metallic archival paper.
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Using her iPhone, Huggins made several small photographs of beach sand using an ink jet printer with soft Asian papers. Heavy graphite pencils were drawn over sections to emphasize the fleeting patterns and textures created by wind. ​
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Maryalice Huggins worked in New York City as a decorative arts restorer/conservator of 18th century American and European furniture and gilded objects. She is a commercially published author of non-fiction. She lives in Middletown Rhode Island.
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