Mary Louise Coulouris is very much a child of the 60s.
On graduating from the Slade in 62 a Scholarship took her to Paris where her career took off with a one person show which was well reviewed and sold to the Bibliotheque Nationale amongst others.
These works were mainly her response to the excitement of Paris street life, imaginative works adapting William Hayter's (her tutor there) colour etching techniques to her own style.

Back in England a developing interest in social questions led her to do series of etchings on the miners of Durham and the fish docks of Hull.
This interest was a reflection of the times she lived in-the socially concerned 60s and 70s.
They were popular works and sold well in London.

This interest continued on her move to Scotland in '76 with her Scottish husband and two small children.
She produced a series of 34 etchings expressing her reaction to the Central Belt, the countryside, the industry in it and the contrasts both to her former environment and contrasts within the Central Belt.
"Central Belt" toured to major venues in Scotland.

Times were changing however.
Scotland was moving fast away from the industrial image. People didn't want to know about images of cranes!
Times were changing and Mary Louise had to change too.

In 1988 her winning design for the Glasgow Garden Festival Main Childrens' Play Area called "The Soft Island" was part of that change, the Garden Festival playing a significant part in Glasgow's high profile attempt to welcome service industries, enterprise and to develop its entrepreneurial skills.

Glasgow helped her again in 1990 by sending her to Athens for 6 months on an Artists Exchange for Glasgow Year of Culture.

This was a genuine turning point in her life. Being a quarter Greek, with a grandfather from a small village in the Peleponese she felt exhilarated by being able to identify with values in Greek culture , to discover a living folk culture in the dance and handicrafts there; to learn more about the classical times , the myths; the Minoan murals.

She took more than a passing interest in these subjects, incorporating them in a series of watercolours drawing parallels between the ancient and the contemporary. For example the discovery that some dances are still done as they were over 2000 years ago inspired one work.
The experience was a refreshing change for her from the culture of the 90s in Britain.

She was able to make use of excellent facilities in custom built studios owned by the Higher Academy of Fine Art and had two one person shows of her work in Athens.
She was made to feel very welcome, Greek hospitality was at its best and people bought her paintings.

Next was a return to the U.S. on a travelling fellowship to study Public Art. This was a trip full of impressions and experiences too varied to find time to paint, but one that left her with a vastly expanded repertoire of ideas about the possibilities of Public Art.

These were put to good use in her commission for Healthcare Arts for thirteen limited edition prints for Arbroath Infirmary outpatients department, and her most recent commission for three carpets for the new Scottish Poetry Library.

In 1996 a residency at the Haworth Museum and Art Gallery near Manchester gave her a chance to work again on ideas inspired by Greece. As the Gallery has a specialist collection of Tiffany glass the theme was "the Vase ". Mary Louise produced a series of works using the vase shape to "contain" ideas she had about ecology, national identity and diverse cultures.

Ecology was a growing interest and this filtered into her commission for the Scottish Poetry library in 1999. Her works inspired by Hugh MacDiarmid's 'Somersault' she dwells on the miracle of the planet whirling through space.

Also in her residency at Scottish Natural Heritage in 1997 she worked on these themes and used techniques she has developed to "Trigger the Mind".

Both in Greece, where she developed marbling techniques to use a as a basis for work and at Scottish Natural Heritage where she used geographical Thin Sections to trigger ideas for landscapes she used ideas which she explains in her article in 'Printmaking Today' (Winter 98).