A sense of quietness and wonder flows through the distinctive mirror works of Otago artist Mary McFarlane in Silent Order, at The Diversion Gallery in Marlborough from early July. The solo exhibition, coinciding with Picton’s Matariki celebration, explores ideas of stillness, harmony and internal horizons, in a world fractured by pandemic, consumption and damage to the environment. There are echoes of earlier celestial works, and her moon series—“carrying the sense of wonder and hope from seeing a full moon, the reflective fugitive surface that shifts constantly with the changing light”—but these are more ephemeral compositions, conceptual horizons.

“The use of found objects has become increasingly important and interesting to me. It’s really hard using found objects – the vintage mirrors, as well as the fossil concretions from which I have been making small sculptures.”

McFarlane has collected intriguing natural concretions near Port Chalmers, to create small sculptures, sometimes casting from them, mysterious in shape, suggesting evolution. “I like the fact the concretions are entirely created by nature, not touched by human hand until I pick them up.”

The exhibition is anchored by substantial works using vintage mirrors – the medium for which McFarlane is best known. Mystery shrouds the way she works into the silver, with oil paint, gold leaf and gold dust, although now the gold is more muted and ethereal, the colours subtle, linked to the fleeting glimpses each mirror holds. Alongside major works like My Horizon I are intimate miniatures: “I like the act of looking at small works – the peering, the bending forward, a precious quality, demanding time.”

Each bevelled edge or frame, from decades past, carries memory, of the viewer’s personal history and the origin of the found object, each image reflecting their own view to the future.