MARY TOOLEY PARKER

Collect Artwork by Artist Mary Tooley Parker

Mary Tooley Parker is a textile maker using textiles as paint. She was awarded a 2015 Fellowship by the New York Foundation for the Arts. After a career in dance and then in art production at Vanity Fair and GQ magazines, Tooley Parker left New York City for a more rural environment. She then began pursuing an interest in textiles of different forms, eventually leading her to the indigenous American folk art of hooking “rugs.” Her hooked artwork focuses on realistic interpretations of people and nature whether from memories, dreams or visual images. Incorporated in her work are new and recycled wool, cotton and silk fabric, fleece, handspun and mill spun yarn, silk fiber, and metallic fibers. She uses natural and synthetic dyes to create colors as needed. In 2019 she was awarded "Best in Show, Gold Award" by juror Jocelyn Miller of MoMA PS1 for her artwork featured in the exhibition "Color" at Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Association's National Juried Show. Her work was featured on a public art billboard in Sunset Park, Brooklyn presented by SaveArtSpace from October 2019-April 2020. Tooley has additionally been featured in The Untitled Space group shows "IRL: Investigating Reality" and "ONE YEAR OF RESISTANCE".