About
Marlene Walters spent her first dozen years in a small and unique Southern California foothill community that was originally settled by nature-loving utopians. She was aware of her visual orientation from an early age and loved art in its many forms. Drawing at the family table with the doors open to the garden and the smell of freshly baked bread from the kitchen, she developed and has retained a deep appreciation for sensory connections in her art.
The San Francisco Bay Area was another good match for her and she earned a B.A. in Art from Mills College. Following a career in corporate graphic design, Marlene returned to her roots in fine art, studying with many notable oil painters.
The work covers a wide range of subject matter including series such as one that celebrates people going about their day-to-day activities, composing paintings to highlight both action and relationship in an impressionistic realism sometimes bordering the abstract.
Many of Marlene's small paintings are studies of commonplace objects that pay tribute to the role of simple beauty in our lives, wherever it comes from--the natural world or the world of good, functional design.
Most recently, Marlene has explored intricate collage made of archival prints of her paintings assembled on wood substrates. This process relates to her lifelong interest in “things made of smaller things” including antique mosaics, rock walls, ethnic quilts and Australian aboriginal art. The collage works have a unique vibrancy through pattern and color. They range in size from intimate to monumental and each has an environmental connection that harkens back to her early years in a place that honored and utilized gifts of the earth.
Marlene is a member of The California Art Club, The American Impressionists Society, The Association of Women Artists, San Francisco Women Artists, and Berkeley Artisans.
Her work has been shown at Desta Gallery in San Anselmo, Shoh Gallery in Berkeley, Mythos Gallery in Berkeley, Studio Gallery in San Francisco, San Francisco Women Artists, Randy Higbee Gallery in Costa Mesa, in the on-line gallery American Artwork, and both the Salamagundi Art Club in New York City and Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, also in New York City. Special recognition includes awards for excellence from the California Art Club and inclusion in national & international juried exhibitions. Marlene’s work has been published regularly in the fine art compendium American Artwork since 2013. Some paintings are available as giclee prints. In addition to painting & collage, Marlene makes fine silver sculptural objects.