"Mary Tumulty is able to create a beautifully dark world, a world of nightmare so richly painted and welcoming that the viewer cannot deny it.

Her work is remiscent of Germanic folklore, tales intended for children to keep them away from the forest, tales that balance heavily on the point between innocence and horror. The world she creates is the nightmare, but perhaps the nightmare in its off-hours; the places and distractions nightmares go when they aren't terrifying to relax for awhile.

Tumulty fetishizes the surface of the painting, whether it is on board, wood, or canvas, she generally hides the marks of her paint brush in favor of a polished and finished image. The eyes of her characters are usually missing or displaced, possibly hinting at a world best viewed differently. Her backgrounds are flat color, backdrops that act like curtains for the foregrounds to take stage in front of.

Her work is dark yet fantastic, gruesome yet smiling, precarious yet pristine. Tumulty has developed a rich world to escape to, to be enchanted by, to be frightened by, and ultimately to be accepted by."

- Andrew Woolbright, Artist