Mary Yacoob
Mary Yacoob’s work encompasses ink on paper, printmaking, wall drawings, large scale vinyl artworks and exhibition light boxes.
Yacoob redeploys the visual languages
of electrical and engineering diagrams, architectural plans, cartography, alphabetical systems, and musical notation.
She researches and transfigures visual source materials, creating intricate and speculative thought forms that explore drawing systems and geometry, order
and chance, appropriation and interpretation.
By taking diagrams out of their original context, she transforms them into mysterious cyphers for the imagination, creating connections between disciplines.
Email: yacoob.mary@googlemail.com
Instagram: @mary_yacoob
Education
2022–
PhD Student, The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL
2005 –2007
Central Saint Martins, MA Fine Art
2000 –2004
Cass School of Art, London Metropolitan Univ, BA Hons Fine Art (1st Class)
1997 –2000
City Literary Institute, Fine Art Course
1992 –1995
Middlesex University, BA Hons Politics with English Literature
Commissions
2020
Writers Mosaic, commissioned drawings for publication
2019
Uncertain Ruins, Swiss Cottage Library, site specific vinyl artwork
2014
Canalology, POST Artists commission, London, site specific artworks
2013
Trove: Thrift Radiates Happiness at the Municipal Bank, commissioned print
2010
Away Day POST Artists Network, site specific works
2009
Mid Pennine Art Gallery site specific drawings
2006
Circ Interventions, “Power of Art” Commission, the Arts Council and BBC
2005
Day-to-Day Data, drawings for publication launched at Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham
Solo Shows
2024
Brutal Space, Bobinska Brownlee New River Gallery
2021
Window vinyl installation, Surgery Gallery
2020
Schema, Five Years Gallery
2019
Draft, The Hospital Club
2012
Works on Paper, Westland Place Gallery
2011
The Infinite Combinatorium Part 0, Curated by Crowd 6, Trove
2010
Centre for Recent Drawing
2009
Cities, ANZAC Centre, Royal Brompton Hospital
2008
Propositions for Cities, Seven Seven
2007
Invisible Cities, The Courtyard Studio
Residencies
2020
North Devon Artist Residency
2019
Mutton Fist Press printmaking residency
2011
AA2A printmaking residency at Camberwell College of Art and Design
Relevant Work Experience
2019 to date
Associate Lecturer (part time) Cass School of Art, London Metropolitian University
2019/2020
Six art workshops for adults and children at Mutton Fist Press/Swiss Cottage Library
2019 to date
Lectures about my art practice at Bath Univ, Leeds Univ, London Metropolitan, Winchester School of Art
2020
Talk at solo exhibition, Five Years Gallery
2010 - present
2010 - present
Group Shows
2024
Hard Paper, Phoenix Gallery
2023
Linear Soundscape, Crawley Road Studios
The New Accelerator, Ruskin Gallery
2022
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
Circle and Light, Laurent Delay
Every Cloud, Bruce Castle Museum
A Generous Space, The New Art Gallery Walsall
North Devon Artist Residency Group Exhibition, Bay View Gallery, Combe Martin
Summer Breakdown, Bobinska Brownlee New River Gallery
Alignment, Gallery 46
Ecologies of Drawing: In Situ, Drawing Research Network
2021
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
North Devon Artist Residency Group Exhibition, Bobinska Brownlee New River Gallery
Can We Ever Know the Meaning of These Objects? Gallery 46
2020
Leeds Summer Group Show
Impartial Iteration, Saturation Point
2019
Face to Face Art, Warsaw, Poland
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
8 Lines, Platform A Gallery
Liminality: Temporal Impressions, Gallery 46
2018
Noel Limits, Mutton Fist Press
The Ghost Tide, Thames Side Studios
Liminality (The unknown), Gallery 46
2017
Two Places at Once, Online exhibition with POST
Contemporary British Prints, Foss Fine Art, in association with Dark Matter Studio
2016
Saturation Point | The five-year anniversary | Open studio, ACME Studios
Parable Displaced, POST Artists at St. Aphege Church, Whitstable
2015
Contemporary British Drawing, Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, China
Multiplied, Printmaking Art Fair at Christies with Dark Matter Studio
Generator, Kaleidscope Gallery
Five Floors, Eighteen Artists, Century
Manorism, ExFed
2014
Beguile the Night: Beyond Drawing, Dark Matter Studio
Co-Imagine: Re-development of Peckham Rye Station Gateway, Bussey Bld/CLF Art Café V&A Tottenham Takeover, with POST artists, V&A
Canalology, POST Artist Network Arts Council funded exhibition along Tottenham’s canals
A Bright and Guilty Place II, PayneShurvell at the Hospital Club
Crossing Lines, & Model, Leeds
2013
Works on Paper, PayneShurvell at Collective Gallery
Cascades: past, present and future, Studio 180
Process Matters, Stoke Newington Library Gallery
Thrift Radiates Happiness,The Municipal Bank, Birmingham, curated by Trove
Do you remember it – or weren’t you there? London Gallery West, University of Westminster
2012
Poster Production, Portman Gallery, Morpeth School, London
Virulent Experience, Conway Hall, London
Surfaces: Works on Paper, Sput+Nik Gallery, Porto, Portugal
At Play, Ovada, Oxford
At Play 4, South Hill Park
Ten Anniversary of Bookartbookshop, Red Gallery
2011
Launching Pad, Galerie8
Utopian Arts Fest, Parlour Gallery
Shall/Will, Camberwell College of Art
Broken Telephone, with POST artists at Exchange Project Space
Grange Gardens Sculpture Project, Galerie 8
2010
From the Dustheaps, Charles Dickens Museum, London
A Bright and Guilty Place, PayneShurvell,
POST Away Day, London
Preambles and Perambulations, Charles Dickens Museum, London
At Play, South Hill Park Gallery, UK
Harsh Lines and Spongy Surfaces, Island Projects at Hackney Wicked Festival, London
Quantified Aesthetics, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, USA
2009
I can bring this to your city, Island Projects at Hackney Wicked Festival, London
This is a Stick Up, Launch Collaborative, Oxford
2nd Sheffield Artist’s Book Prize Exhibition
Transition, Mid Pennine Arts Gallery
Three by Three Becomes Guest Projects, Yinka Shonibare Space, London
AM Bruno, Bookartbookshop, London
Sound Ways, Sight Waves, Sights and Sounds of Edmonton, London
Three by Three (4), Yinka Shonibare Space, London
2008
Shift - Reflections in Time and Place
Wrapped and Encased in Liverpool 08, Wolstenholme Projects, Liverpool 2008
Little Things, The Parlour, London
2007
MA Degree Show, Central Saint Martins, London
Drawings Inspired by “Invisible Cities”, The Courtyard Studio, London
In>Visible Traces, The Old Boys Club, London
Io Sono Solo In Una Terra Straniera, Unitre Milano, Milan, Italy
DIY, Nolias Gallery, London
11.472, Bargehouse, London
2006
q, Curator Space, London
Identikit, temporarycontemporary, London
Sound Practice 2006, Goldsmiths College of Art
Identikit, temporarycontemporary, London
2005
Sound Café, Jedburgh Community and Arts Centre, Scotland
A-Mart: Ale and Porter Arts, Bradford on Avon
Counter Measure, Florence Arts Trust
Besucher/Visitors, Gallery VorOrt, Hamburg, Germany
2004
Shop, Space-twotentwo
60-Seconds, Salon, Darklight Film Festival
60-Seconds, Space-twotentwo and 291 Gallery
BA Fine Art Degree Show, London Metropolitan University
Made in 2004 Part II, Morley Gallery
Dino, Indo Bar
2003 Animation show reel with Morley Art College students, Cargo
2002 Art in Poplar, Mile End Art Pavilion
2002 From the Cradle to the Grave, Unit 2 Gallery, London Metropolitan University
2002 End of year show, Westminster and Kingsway College
2001 Swains Green Haymaking Festival
2000 City Lit Fine Art show, The October Gallery
1999 City Lit Fine Art show, The City Lit
Collections
Guest Projects/Yinka Shonibare; Brunel University Art Collection;
Artist books in Tate Archive, Chelsea College of Art and Design Special Collection, London College of Communication, and others
Awards
2020
Arts Council National Lottery Project Grants
2005
Arts and Humanities Research Board Award
2004
Royal Female School of Art Foundation Bursary
2004
Owen Rowley Award
2002
Ellen Clarkson Award