My work is a mediation on light, color, and time. Light is a map, and I am a cartographer.

Mary Royall Wilgis

About the Artist

Mary-Royall-Wilgis-Headshot

Mary Royall Wilgis (b. 1997) is a painter based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work invites viewers to slow down and attend to the subtle ways light shapes space, marks time, and animates color. Each painting begins with what she calls “light foraging”: carrying bolts of raw canvas into the street to capture fleeting compositions of sunlight as it filters through trees, slips between leaves, or bends around buildings. Tracing these ephemeral patterns directly onto the canvas in ink, she preserves the imprint of a specific moment before working into it in paint back in the studio. Her works are titled after the precise time and location at which the light was gathered, honoring the fleeting moment each painting preserves.

News and Notables
  • Paris Art & Design, Amelie Du Chalard, 2026

  • RSL Designer Showhouse, Bon Millen, 2026

  • Bloom, Salon 21, 2026