---
title: "Mary Ahern – Centering in the Midst of Chaos"
url: "https://artleagueli.org/mary-ahern-centering-in-the-midst-of-chaos/"
post_type: "post"
date_published: "2026-11-05T21:45:48+00:00"
date_modified: "2026-11-05T21:45:48+00:00"
categories: ["Member News"]
---

# Mary Ahern – Centering in the Midst of Chaos

November 3 – 28, 2026

Ceres Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, Suite 201, New York, NY

Opening Reception: Thursday, November 5, 6:00–8:00 PM

Meet the Artist: Saturday, November 7, 1:00–3:00 PM

Closing Reception: Saturday, November 28, 1:00–3:00 PM

NEW YORK, NY — Opening on Election Day, Ceres Gallery presents Centering in the Midst of Chaos, a solo exhibition of oil paintings, digital artwork, and an immersive installation by Long Island artist Mary Ahern. Using paint, pixels, sound, and soil, Ahern explores the healing counterbalance between centering and chaos. She offers visitors a place to pause, look closely, and find their balance again.

The work begins in Ahern’s garden in Northport, New York, which she has designed and tended for more than three decades. When life gets loud, that is where she goes, and looking closely at a single flower brings her back to balance. “My work returns again and again to centering, not as an escape from chaos, but as an active response to it,” says Ahern.

In her oil paintings, Ahern glazes magnified flowers from her garden in thin, transparent layers over abstract underpaintings inspired by images of the galaxy. By pairing the very small with the very large, the paintings invite viewers to consider the harmony and balance that sustain gardens, the cosmos, and our own communities. Circles and spheres, a thread through her work for over fifty years, carry many meanings, among them the circle of life, meditation, and safety. A group of digital works extends this close looking into new media. Each began as live flowers captured on a scanner and is printed on canvas.

At the heart of the exhibition is A Space for Centering, an immersive installation of flower video, sound, living plants, and water that recreates the calm of time spent in a garden. The work draws on neuroaesthetics, the study of how art and beauty affect the brain and body. The field gave Ahern language for what the garden had long been teaching her.

About Mary Ahern

Mary Ahern is a multi-disciplinary artist using paint, pixels, sound, and soil to explore the healing counterbalance between centering and chaos. Her large, close-up flowers, drawn from the garden she has tended in Northport, New York, for more than three decades, are layered with imagery of the galaxy. Pairing the very small with the very large, they reflect the harmony and balance we need to thrive.

She moves easily between video and still imagery, digital and traditional painting, assemblage, installation, and garden design. Her practice is closely connected to neuroaesthetics, and her immersive installations bring the calm of the garden indoors. She carries these ideas into her writing on art, nature, and healing. An early adopter and entrepreneur, Ahern holds degrees in Fine Art and Ornamental Horticulture, studied computer programming at Columbia University, and founded her own technology-driven graphic design business.

She has exhibited widely, including in museums and arboretums, and her work is held in collections throughout the United States and internationally. Ceres Gallery in Chelsea, New York, represents her, and her work is featured on Artsy and Bloomberg Connects.

High-resolution images available on request.

Website: MaryAhernArtist.com