About Mary Attwood
“Mary draws on both contemporary art history and psychology, and on ancient but half-forgotten approaches. New ways of seeing, and new insight, are the result.”
Dr Simon Wilson
Mary Attwood is an art historian, author, mentor, business creative and advisor. Her breadth of experience encompasses the transformative effects of art, personal development as well as business expertise. She runs training, courses and masterclasses on Art for individuals, organisations, psychology practices and charities both nationally and internationally. She is a qualified yoga, meditation and mindfulness teacher and has ghost written two books in the field of consciousness, published by Watkins. She has also worked as creator, producer, publicist and script writer for her own production company and created an award winning line of wellness DVDs.
She is co-founder of the Centre for Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred, an organisation dedicated to reviving the spark of wisdom-enriched learning from the world’s leading thinkers and in which Mary teaches and directs the faculties of the Arts and Humanities. Mary is founder and creator of psychiatrist and polymath, Dr Iain McGilchrist’s platforms, which she continues to direct, as well as managing his publicity.
Mary holds a BA (hons) in the History of Art, London University, where she focused her studies on Italian late medieval and renaissance art and architecture. She holds an MA with distinction where she researched renaissance art and art’s effects and meaning in general through the lenses of the historical, psychological, philosophical, consciousness, and the neuroscientific studies of Dr Iain McGilchrist’s thesis on the hemispheres of the brain.
She currently lives in London, UK.
“I met Mary when she ran an art appreciation class. I was entranced by her knowledge – and the way she made a subject that could be thought of as ‘dry’ by some, totally fascinating!”
D. Harding
Mary’s expertise lies in her scope of experience, practice and study in both academic Art History (which she has studied since the age of 16) with her research and practices of consciousness. She emphasises the importance of awakening to the potency of art beyond rationalising analysis, categories and styles, to include imaginative and felt responses; of bridging ancient half-forgotten approaches to art with consciousness, psychology and neuroscience; and re-visioning art from a broad inclusive perspective of metaphor and meaning, myth and imagination, intellect and history.
Mary’s work has been described as addressing the heart of images and the heart of the seer, by offering what might be called a right hemispheric view of art, enabling a broader context to emerge. Neuroscientific evidence has revealed that how we see art awakens epistemologies, greater states of inspiration, insights, arouses the higher imagination beyond mere fantasy, a seeing different perspectives (problem solve), shifts perceptions and develops the ability to embrace ambiguity and the unknown. These qualities are essential in meeting today’s challenges, inviting philosophical questioning and encouraging a move through and beyond current reductionist views.