Mary Bourne RSA FRSS
Mary Bourne is a visual artist based in the rural North East of Scotland. She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art and was awarded a John Kinross Scholarship to Florence by the Royal Scottish Academy in 1985. Her professional experience has built on her first role as Artist in Residence for Irvine New Town to include numerous projects that engage with people and places, often working in collaboration with other art and design professionals, as well as with local communities.
Mary has exhibited widely in Britain and abroad. She has received a number of prizes and awards including the Meyer Oppenheim Award (1997) and Ireland Alloys Award (1996), both from the Royal Scottish Academy. Internationally, she has been an invited participant at symposia in America and Japan and was a Royal Society of Sculptors/Brian Mercer award winner to the world-renowned Studio Sem in Pietrasanta, Tuscany. Recently she participated in the Land Art Museum project in Norway.
Early in her career Mary taught part time at Scottish art colleges and she has since led numerous education projects, including stone carving master classes at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and mentoring of early career artists in Moray. She devised and managed the multi-award-winning Mortlach Story Walks project in Dufftown in collaboration with the local school and footpath charity to deliver arts-based interpretation around the town.
Mary has also contributed to the Scottish art scene through membership of a number of voluntary committees and organisations. She was involved in the very early stages of setting up Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, was a Trustee of the Scottish Sculpture Trust and chaired both the Scottish Sculpture Workshop and engaged arts organisation Deveron Projects. She also served on the Exhibitions Panel and Visual Arts Committee for the Scottish Arts Council.
Recently her work, which connects people to places and people to people, has focussed on her own locality. Here she has been working with the local farming community and, in collaboration with fellow artist Lynne Strachan, has developed the multi-faceted arts project, Cabrach Reconnections, focussed on this remote upland area in Moray.
Mary was elected an Academician by the Royal Scottish Academy in 2012 and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Sculptors in 2023.