Mary Mulholland has come to prominence because of a very rare innate ability to meld the traditional disciplines and skills of the still-life genre to a broader context that is humanistic in scope, deeply informed by devotional Christianity and the story of Christ in particular.

Her paintings feature cut flowers that have been formally placed, on a table or in front of a scene, as occurs in all acts of remembrance and celebration. The context is celebratory and the narrative purpose of the works is sequential in character (directly referencing the fourteen Stations of the Cross) as stages of contemplation.

Mulholland uses the language of colour and the dominant placement of the flower as key devices in her work. She also delivers with botanical accuracy a profound sense of the flowers – it is as if they are real and can be smelt, touched, held up and examined.

In Stations she has developed secular metaphors, as meditative tools. Tulips represent mortality. In works I-X desire (symbolised by iron) is shown to be disintegrating and at peril, beauty and kindness to be battling outside (exterior) forces.

In works XI-XIV explicit reference is made to death with details of a wooden casket intermingled with fine fabrics. This contrast of hard and soft, fact and hope, death and beauty lies at the centre of her work.