Mary Wagstaff - Painter

Mary Wagstaff is an Art Gallery Guide and a Painter 

Details about the exhibition

Inspired by……… an exhibition by 26 volunteers at AGSA 

(Art Gallery of South Australia)

Light Square Gallery, 39 Light Square, Adelaide 

https://www.tafesa.edu.au/adelaide-college-of-the-arts/light-square-gallery

Wed 5th August - Friday 21st August 

Monday to Friday - 10.00 a.m. - 5.00 p.m. 

Official Launch:   

Jason Smith, Director, AGSA 

Thursday 13th August, 3.00 p.m. - 5.00 p.m. 

Music is original music by David Innocente 

"One Thing Led to Another"

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to Inspired by Art and Volunteering, an exhibition with me, Tanya Ingerson. I'm having so much fun interviewing some all these artists who are volunteers and will be exhibiting in the Salah exhibition this year 2026 at the Light Square Gallery in Adelaide, and our exhibition is called Inspired By. I'm interviewing many of the artists that will be exhibiting, and in this podcast, I have interviewed Mary Wagstaff, who is a painter who's had a long career, successful career exhibiting, and creates the most beautiful, colourful, gorgeous landscapes of Adelaide and McLarenvale. And I'm so grateful to have met Mary and know her and to call her a friend. We trained and graduated together as gallery guides, and it's a really fun interview. So I hope you enjoy it. So sit back and relax and enjoy the conversation I had with Mary. Hi Mary, thanks for doing this chat. We know each other quite well actually because we graduated together, didn't we? We did. Hi Tanya, it's lovely to be here. It is nice. What is your role as a volunteer here at the Art Gallery of South Australia?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

My role, my role as a gallery guide, is that what you meant by volunteers? Yes, is um really to um help the people who come in to look at paintings, to help them look at paintings, and also to point out um certain paintings that um I find interesting and um talking to them about it. I often say you might have gone by this painting if you hadn't had a guide to stop you. So um I like doing that, and I I think that's the goal of a um of um of a guide, and help people to look, stop and look at paintings.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

And paintings particularly are your area of passion.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Well, I would that be right? That is right, yes. Yes, I've done a lot of painting myself, and um so I know more about paint painting than say sculpture or um photography, other forms of art.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I know not that I'm an expert in painting, but well, I know when we've had discussions and we've talked even through our training, you talk about the techniques about painting for I know for our visitors in a in a way that not not a lot of other guides do. So I'm sure people love that detail of technique that you talk about as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Well, sometimes I I do talk about try and talk about the technique of um the painting, but um um and I I guess um uh people do enjoy that when they hear it. Um for instance the new painting, uh the fairly new painting we've got called the waterfall, which is in the um the foyer of the art gallery, yeah, is um a very painterly painting, and I do sort of describe how how that's been painted with great big brush books and um and also that some of the drawing is still um able to be seen in on the white canvas. My goodness, I'm gonna have to have a bit more of a look at that. How long have you been a guide for? Well, as you previously said, we we graduate graduated at the same time and became guides in 2018. Yes. A while. Uh quite a while now.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

It was very how nervous were we, Mary, when we first started, weren't we?

SPEAKER_00 4:11

It's amazing. I never thought I'd be able to talk without notes, and and then you know, we did suddenly. Yes. We were able to.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And what do you love about being a volunteer?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

About being a volunteer, I think apart from taking people around the gallery, it's um lovely to be um to be part of the meetings that we have every week, and we are very privileged to hear curators talk about new exhibitions, and they have just such uh vast knowledge of um of these um of different painters and um exhibitions. Um so it's it's quite a privilege to be um amongst um people who who enjoy the same things who are really interested in art, and um and it's just um wonderful to be with people who um and to share to share our interests. We've made some really lovely friendships, Mary.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

We certainly have, yes, yes, and they'll be long term, they already are, and they always will be, I think. I think so too, yes, yes. And what is I know we've touched on a little bit, but what is your art practice? Maybe for the listeners, just tell us a little bit more about your career, Mary, as an artist.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Well, I suppose since my school days I've been painting and drawing on and off until now I'm I'm painting these paintings for the um for the SARA exhibition this year. Um so I've always been interested in doing um portraits, uh life drawing, still life and and landscape. So landscape's always been part of my practice. And um I've I I use acrylic paints because they're so convenient, they dry quickly and they have they're nice bright um um paints and um and and well it's a convenient way of uh producing um paintings.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

And you have exhibited quite extensively, Mary. Is it been um is it did you exhibit in England? Did you tell me that the other day?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

I did. I had um I suppose that was my first exhibition in England. Um we were there, um my husband and I and family were there for my husband's study. We were there for eight months. So I um I just concentrated on um doing sketches of where we were, and somebody said, gosh, why don't you have an exhibition? So I did. I had a little exhibition in England. That was after training here in Adelaide at the um at the TAFE College in Stanley Street. Yeah. And um, of course, I I trained in England as well before coming out to Australia.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

And you have exhibited quite regularly, even since I've known you, in is it the Parklands? What is that?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Parklands Art Prize? Yes. That's been going since 2014, and it's a biennial um exhibition, and I have been fortunate enough to be to have been chosen three times for the for the exhibition. The first one in 2014, where I painted a um um Morton Bay fig tree on quite a big canvas, and then um a couple of years ago um I did another view of the uh Benithon Park and um and then was it last year I I put another painting in.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Yes. So you've had you're not going to say this, but you have had a very successful career in art. Is that you've been able to to have that as your career really for a big part of your life? Would you say that?

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Well, since I've been in Adelaide, um I suppose I have exhibited quite widely in South Australia and um in galleries. Um I was lucky to um to be able to exhibit at Green Hill Galleries, um which doesn't exist anymore unfortunately, and um art images in um uh Norwood as well as um several galleries in um in the uh in McArenvale because I did a lot of painting um down in McCarranvale. Yeah, so I've been fortunate in that um some galleries have liked my work and have um have um um I've been able to sell there from those galleries.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

And I have seen your work and it is beautiful, Mary. I am not surprised why you've had such a great career because you it is really stunning. The colours that you use and the landscapes are just amazing.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

So thank you, Tommy. No, you're welcome. I think if you're a painter you you use colour and uh so I I do like colour in beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

You do, and it's beautiful. What are you inspired by for the work you're going to put into the Sala exhibition? Inspired by? Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Well, I've done a few paintings of um um areas in the parklands because um I don't get a chance to go down to McLaren Vale now and uh more up into the um to the Adelaide Hills. So I go to the parklands to um be inspired for my for my paintings. It there's such a variety of um of scenes in the parklands. We have beautiful, the beautiful new, fairly new wetlands which um inspire me. And um of course the the river Torrens goes through the parklands. And apart from that, every tree has its own personality. Oh, that's beautiful. So that's that's why I I use the parklands for painting.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Well, I can't wait to see what you've produced for the exhibition. I have one last question. What do you love about art?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

That's a difficult one. What do I love about art? Well I love the um the variety, perhaps. The variety. I've just been looking at some some 16th century portraits by by a female artist. Modern art is or contemporary art is quite a challenge, but I I love and appreciate the um imagination of the artists of today. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

That's really true. Well, thank you, Mary. This has been great fun and great because we chat all the time anyway, but this is really lovely to have done it on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

So thank you, Tanya. It's been lovely being with you.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

I hope you enjoyed that chat I had with Mary. It is no surprise that Mary was chosen three times for the Parklands Art Prize. She's it was it was so much fun, but I think you can tell that from listening to this podcast. Well, please join me next time when I interview another artist who's a volunteer at the Art Gallery of South Australia who will be exhibiting in our exhibition inspired by at the Light Square Gallery from the 5th of August to the 21st of August. Details at the bottom of this podcast. Until then, bye for now.