Mary Hark

media release:

The Textile Arts Center of Madison (TAC) is pleased to announce the opening of its new exhibition, ORDINARY TOPOGRAPHIES, a collection of recent works by artist, papermaker, and UW-Madison Design Studies Professor Mary Hark. The exhibition will be on view at TAC from January 21 through March 7, 2026. (Location and hours listed below.)

Ordinary Topographies is a dynamic collection of paper textile works created from handmade flax and linen papers. The exhibition highlights texture, layering, and the physical evidence of process, encouraging slow and contemplative viewing. Shifts between dense, grounded tones and light, delicate traces create a subtle rhythm throughout the work. Together, the pieces reflect on time, labor, and attention, finding meaning in the quiet marks that accumulate within the spaces and moments of daily life.

“Harks constructed paintings combine handmade papers and cloth into an intricate ground, stitched together with thread and built up into a complex stratigraphy with paint, wax, textile dyes, inks, and pencil marks. Large in scale, they appear both delicate and resilient. Their layered surfaces invoke the patina of time: the slow, subtle erosion of a well-thumbed page, the careless beauty of mended clothing, the evocative fissures in an old painted wall. Harks' dedicated study of both paper and textile techniques lends her surfaces a particular depth. She crosses traditional boundaries with knowledge and respect, creating a rich and surprising body of mixed-media work.”                                                                                                                            -- Jody Clowes, curator, James Watrous Gallery, Madison, Wisconsin 

Mary Hark is a professor in the Design Studies Department at UW-Madison. Proprietor of Hark! Handmade Paper, she produces limited paper editions in collaboration with book designers and artists, and mixed media artworks. Hark’s work can be found in national and international collections. Recipient of a McKnight Fellowship, she earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and MA from the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

TAC will celebrate the opening of ORDINARY TOPOGRAPHIES with a public reception on Friday, January 23 from 6-8pm. This event is free and open to the public. 

TAC’s public hours for viewing the exhibition are Wednesday through Friday from noon-4pm and Saturdays from 10am-4pm, January 21 through March 7, 2026. 

About the Textile Arts Center of Madison 

The Textile Arts Center of Madison (TAC) is a hub for the fiber arts community,  offering classes and workshops, exhibitions and events, and access to supplies  for makers and enthusiasts of all ages and backgrounds. The nonprofit organization was founded in 2023 with a vision for a community in which creative expression through textile and fiber arts is celebrated, supported, and  accessible to all. Through its programming, TAC celebrates the rich traditions  and cultures of fiber craft, and seeks to reflect the diversity of fiber art makers. Visit textileartsmadison.org to learn more.