Biography
Mary Grey is an Irish printmaker based at Graphic Studio Dublin, working in etching, aquatint, linocut, photo-intaglio, and mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing). Born in 1948 in Dublin, she came to printmaking as a second career: she earned a BA from University College Dublin in 1972, completed teacher training at the Froebel College of Education in 1979, and worked as a primary teacher until her retirement in 2005.
From 2000 onward she pursued formal art education through evening, weekend, and summer classes at NCAD, IADT, the National Gallery of Ireland, and Trinity College Dublin, building a portfolio across drawing, watercolour, acrylic, oil painting, photography, and art history. She was introduced to printmaking in 2008 via a summer course at NCAD and joined Graphic Studio Dublin in 2009, where she has continued developing across multiple print techniques. Her work is inspired by nature and her surroundings, particularly Irish coastal and harbour scenes and natural-history botanical subjects such as Magnolia Galaxy, Cherry Blossom, and A Greedy Bee.
Grey's mokuhanga 'Pick of the Bunch' was selected for Kanreki, the exhibition mounted by Graphic Studio Dublin to mark its 60th anniversary. Kanreki — a Japanese term for the completion of a sixty-year cycle, traditionally symbolised by the colour red — was organised around a brief that every participating artist incorporate red into their print. The exhibition was shown at the Graphic Studio Gallery in Dublin in 2021.
Her Graphic Studio Dublin catalogue ranges from small etchings such as 'Where Giants Sleep' (12 × 13 cm) to medium-scale aquatints and photo-intaglios, with mokuhanga appearing as a smaller component of the broader body of work. Her prints return to a recurring contemplative-pastoral vocabulary — small-craft harbours, garden bees, blossom branches, and shoreline studies — produced at modest editions and small to medium scale. A member of Graphic Studio Dublin since 2009, she works across a range of print techniques while maintaining a particular interest in the water-based woodblock tradition of mokuhanga.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1948
- Nationality
- 🇮🇪Ireland
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Subjects
- Still Life
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Mary Grey is an Irish printmaker based at Graphic Studio Dublin, working in etching, aquatint, linocut, photo-intaglio, and mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing). Born in 1948 in Dublin, she came to printmaking as a second career: she earned a BA from University College Dublin in 1972, completed teacher training at the Froebel College of Education in 1979, and worked as a primary teacher until her retirement in 2005.
Mary Grey was active born in 1948. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Mary Grey's work was shaped by the Contemporary Mokuhanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Contemporary Mokuhanga: Contemporary mokuhanga (literally "wood-block print") encompasses artists working from approximately 1970 to the present who continue or reinvent traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques.
Mary Grey's prints frequently feature still life.