Mary Opatz Herges paints the places that she most likes to be. “I want to recapture through paint the rapt feeling these places evoke,” explains the artist. The resulting landscapes, typically small in scale, are jewel-like depictions of sunlit fields and northern lakes, timeless in their appeal.

The artist’s works begin on Baltic birch panels that are treated with layers of gesso, hand-sanded between each application to achieve a satin-like painting surface. Vistas evolve through the application of many layers of opaque oil paint and transparent glazes.

Mary, a corporate designer who holds graduate degrees in printmaking, uses the very early morning hours before work to paint at her studio, which is located in an old flatiron building in St. Cloud, MN. In 2007, she earned the First Place Best of Show Award at the annual Lakeville Art Festival in Lakeville, MN.