Cargo
Artist
Mary Iverson
MediumOil and graphite on canvas
Dimensions48 x 60 x 2 in. (121.9 x 152.4 x 5.1 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineLibraries for All Bond 1% for Art funds
Description: Mary Iverson’s oil painting, Cargo, depicts a fantastical accumulation of shipping containers arranged in massive stacks at the Port of Seattle. As port capacities continually expand, she explores the role of container terminals and imagines what they may look like in the future. Using an intricate network of guidelines, she develops a dramatic one-point perspective in Cargo that creates a sea of containers stretching endlessly towards the horizon. With thousands of colorful and carefully piled boxes, Iverson creates a surreal, geometric landscape that features iconic imagery from Seattle’s port industry.
Artist Statement: Since 1999, I have been observing the Port of Seattle’s container terminals. In 2000, I obtained an access permit to the terminals and completed a series of plein air studies of the container cranes. Gradually, I moved towards the abstract style of my current paintings, which focus on color, plane, space and line. My compositions feature impossible accumulations of containers, ships and container cranes in dramatic perspective. Conceptually my work deals with issues of accumulation, consumption, industry, time and ambiguity.
Location: Sally Goldmark Branch Library (Madrona), 1134 33rd Avenue, Seattle WA 98122
Location: Sally Goldmark Branch Library (Madrona), 1134 33rd Avenue, Seattle WA 98122
