Mary Gagler is a multidisciplinary artist based in Baltimore, MD, whose work spans sculpture, mixed media, and painting. Her practice examines the tension between inner experience and social reality, transforming observations and personal emotions into sculptural forms. Drawing on industrial processes and intuitive construction, Gagler welds and assembles steel fragments and mixed media into symbolic forms—such as interpretive keys, oversized cigarette butts, and "Fabergé omelets"—that serve as critiques of societal absurdity, metaphors for spiritual resistance, and liberation.
Gagler’s work has been exhibited at the Spring/Break Art Show in 2025, 2023 and 2022, and she has contributed to the cultural field as a curator, gallery director, educator, and writer, curating exhibitions for Spring/Break in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Her solo and group exhibitions reflect a commitment to both technical exploration and conceptual exploration. She was the Gallery Director at Amos Eno Gallery in Brooklyn and Exhibitions Director at the Art School at Old Church, and she held residencies and internships at Mudhouse Residency on Crete and an Indigenous-run arts center in remote Australia.
She received a BA from Earlham College in Art History, and an MA in Art History and Museum Studies at The City College of New York. Her curatorial projects highlight the work of local contemporary artists, while her research focuses on contemporary Indigenous Australian art and its impact on culture, civil rights, and land issues.
Press:
The Art Newspaper, Torey Akers, Quiet moments cut through the noise at Spring/Break Art Show 2023, September 7, 2023
The New York Times Style Magazine, Alexa Brazilian, Why Artists Can’t Quit Cigarettes, September 13, 2023
BMore Art, Michael Anthony Farley And Whitney Kimball, Cigarettes, Ceramics, and Curatorial Chaos, May 22, 2023
Artnet News, Sarah Cascone, ‘It’s Like a Potluck’: The Spring Break Art Show Returns With Work by Regular Participants, Their Friends, and Their Friends’ Friend, May 11, 2023
Recent writing:
Review: Exhibition Review: Ancestry and Kinship in Yolŋu Curation, Pacific Arts Journal, Peer-reviewed article in Pacific Arts Vol. 23 No. 2 (2023-24), 2024
Interview with Luke Scholes, curator of the moment eternal: Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, Whitehot Magazine, October 2020
‘These Works are Their Messengers’ Interview with Henry Skerritt, curator of The Inside World: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Memorial Poles from the Debra and Dennis Scholl Collection, Whitehot Magazine, July 2020
Talking About Decadence, Disneyland, and Little Bathrooms with Lizbeth Mitty, Whitehot Magazine, September 2017
Exhibitions:
Equal Temperament, Kentucky Museum Bowling Green, KY, 2025
Dreamscapes, The Hideout Gallery, Baltimore, MD, 2025
Cabinet of Curiosities, Annual Benefit Exhibition, Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA, 2024
VOX XIX, 19th Annual Juried Exhibition, Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA, 2024
I Will Always Love You, Everywoman Biennial, New York, NY 2024
Wild Card, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York, NY, 2023
Secret Show, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York, NY, 2023
Naked Lunch, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York, NY, 2022
Final Exhibition, Mudhouse Residency, Crete, Greece, 2022
Hot Rock Art Collective Inaugural Show, Cotyledon Gallery, Baltimore, MD, 2022
Uniforms for the end of time, Chashama, NY, 2021
March Madness, Incubator Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2019
Winter Solstice, Incubator Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2018
Women Make Art, City College Art Gallery, New York, NY 2017
Whisper Sweet Nothings, Incubator Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2017
Peace Among Savages A.K.A. The Gun Show, Amos Eno Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2016
Paper Fête, Amos Eno Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2016
From the studio classes, Mikhail Zakin Gallery, Demarest, NJ, 2012-2015
Fundraiser, Bruce High Quality Foundation University, New York, NY, 2011
Public Auction, Flint Public Art Project, New York, NY, 2011
Salon 561, Mikhail Zakin Gallery, Demarest, NJ, 2010, 2011
Color Talk, Chashama, New York, NY 2011
Faculty Exhibition, Belskie Museum, Closter, NJ, 2010