Mary MacGregor-Reid | Celestial Bodies

15 August - 19 September

Opening 2pm Saturday 15 August

Crystal singing bowl performance by Alchemy Aotearoa

About the Artist:

Mary works primarily with photography and moving image, though much of her practice unfolds long before the camera is introduced. She constructs the objects, props, and sculptural elements that appear within her works, treating the set not as a backdrop but as an extension of the final image.

Her work draws on symbolic traditions, particularly alchemy, which employed coded imagery to describe processes of transformation. The use of archetypal figures, gesture, costume, and symbolic objects is central to many esoteric rituals, and these visual languages inform her practice. Her work sits within a renewed contemporary interest in early twentieth-century artists—particularly women—who incorporated esoteric ideas into their creative vocabulary. She is interested in how these artists used ritual and symbolism to articulate forms of knowledge that exist beyond the rational or everyday.

Across moving image, sculpture, and installation, Mary explores how gestures, atmospheres, and symbolic residues persist across time. Through slow motion, light, and carefully considered material surfaces, she creates works that unfold at a contemplative pace, suspended between stillness and transformation, inviting viewers into spaces that feel both familiar and otherworldly.