From print to performance — art across disciplines
Beyond her acclaimed light works, Mary is an award-winning printmaker, a choreographer of performance pieces, and a respected public speaker and mentor. Her practice is fluid and wide-ranging, often incorporating film, sound, movement, and photography as documentation or as integral forms.
She has led residencies for Parliament, Crisis, the British Council, RHS Wisley, and Watts Gallery — where she facilitated an impactful art programme for women prisoners at HMP Send. Whether creating memorials, leading workshops, or devising new commissions, her approach consistently balances material craft with conceptual depth.
Her solo exhibitions span over two decades, from the National Theatre and Dulwich Park to galleries across the UK. She is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors and The London Group, with recent exhibitions at Bankside Gallery, Copeland Gallery, and RHS Wisley.
Illuminating history, space, and the unseen
Mary Branson is a British contemporary artist known for her immersive light installations and large-scale conceptual works. Her most iconic piece, New Dawn (2016), is the first permanent abstract artwork in the Palace of Westminster — a luminous tribute to the Suffrage movement’s centenary. Working with light, sound, and space, Mary has created powerful site-specific commissions for the London 2012 Olympics, Royal Holloway University, Salisbury Cathedral, and Harvest — a vast, environmentally-driven installation at Box Hill created in partnership with Surrey Hills Arts.
Her work is rooted in a sensitivity to landscape, politics, and the passage of time — often transforming architectural and natural settings into spaces of collective reflection.
Collaboration, scale, and the power of place
Mary thrives on the challenge of creating work within and alongside communities. Many of her projects are made with large teams of volunteers, reinforcing the value of shared authorship and engagement. Her art doesn’t just respond to a location — it emerges from the voices, histories, and textures that shape it.
Because much of her installation work is temporary, she treats documentation — through photography, film, and sound — as a key element of the final piece. Alongside her public commissions, she produces smaller works in glass and ceramics, allowing collectors to bring a fragment of her world into their own.