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Marvel Maring
USA
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“I love the act of discovery that happens when the thinking mind is quiet and an intuitive mind takes over.”
Art making can be an act of hope and courage during destabilizing times, as well as a way to process loss, grief, anger, frustration, and confusion. Now more than ever, Marvel Maring has relied on her studio practice to provide a sanctuary and antidote-a literal and liminal space of possibility and peace.
Bardo #9 | Collage
$800
9.5 X 22
The Bardo series is a recent series created as a response to the 2021 death of her best friend Julie Green, the artist responsible for the Last Supper series. In the Buddhist tradition, the bardo is a period of 49 days after death that represents a liminal space before a soul is reincarnated into the next life. This period is when consciousness is not attached to a physical body. This series, a total of 49 in all when completed, represent these 49 days.
Maring sees the act of creating as one that allows her to process strong emotions and it restores a sense of connection and wholeness - something desperately needed in this fractured time.
Bardo #10 | Collage
$800
9.5 X 22
The Bardo series is a recent series created as a response to the 2021 death of her best friend Julie Green, the artist responsible for the Last Supper series. In the Buddhist tradition, the bardo is a period of 49 days after death that represents a liminal space before a soul is reincarnated into the next life. This period is when consciousness is not attached to a physical body. This series, a total of 49 in all when completed, represent these 49 days.
Ironically, the act of destruction became the means by which she rediscovered a sense of wholeness in her latest work. This body of collage work began in 2018 as a response to a stressful period of artist block. She was discouraged by the tired, self-conscious, and overwrought paintings she was making and she felt something had to change. To break through to something lively and joyful, she decided to rethink the previous work and use it in a new way.
“The process of working in collage allows for surprising juxtapositions that I couldn’t achieve in my previous approach to painting.”
Maring started exploring watercolors from a handmade Italian supplier, A. Gallo. Never having worked in watercolor, she was excited to explore their properties and rich palette. While investigating the luminous qualities of the paints, she decided to cut and tear old paintings and drawings and create collages responding to the swaths of watercolor washes. Riffing visually with the lush watercolor backdrops, she creates active and obsessive collages, often in series. They are small in scale (no larger than 10” x 30”) and completed quickly.
Bardo #11 | Collage
$800
9.5 X 22
The Bardo series is a recent series created as a response to the 2021 death of her best friend Julie Green, the artist responsible for the Last Supper series. In the Buddhist tradition, the bardo is a period of 49 days after death that represents a liminal space before a soul is reincarnated into the next life. This period is when consciousness is not attached to a physical body. This series, a total of 49 in all when completed, represent these 49 days.
The Bardo series is a recent series created as a response to the 2021 death of her best friend Julie Green, the artist responsible for the Last Supper series. In the Buddhist tradition, the bardo is a period of 49 days after death that represents a liminal space before a soul is reincarnated into the next life. This period is when consciousness is not attached to a physical body. This series, a total of 49 in all when completed, represent these 49 days.
Bardo #12 | Collage
$800
9.5 X 22
These works begin with chaos, but by rearranging the bits and pieces into a composition, and playing with line, rhythm, color, shapes, and movement, some kind of order and emotional tone begin to emerge. Maring is most delighted when something develops that is a surprise and something she could never have imagined in her “thinking” mind.
“The act of building a surface of fragments and scraps of ‘failed’ works has been both healing and liberating. A sense of freedom and playfulness was restored that I hadn’t felt in a long time.”
“Being in studio is the one place where I can find a reprieve from the foreboding 24-hour news cycle and find a sense of equilibrium during this volatile time.”
Reusing past works to create new ones helps her see that there really are no failures. Just remembering this provides room for exploration and risk-taking. She can manipulate the surface, moving pieces quickly around the page until a whisper of a visual idea emerges. Like improvisation in jazz, these abstract pieces have a spontaneous and lyrical quality.
Bardo #13 | Collage
$800
9.5 X 22
The Bardo series is a recent series created as a response to the 2021 death of her best friend Julie Green, the artist responsible for the Last Supper series. In the Buddhist tradition, the bardo is a period of 49 days after death that represents a liminal space before a soul is reincarnated into the next life. This period is when consciousness is not attached to a physical body. This series, a total of 49 in all when completed, represent these 49 days.
Knowing that the remnants of what didn’t work in a particular art piece might find a place in another is very comforting. These pieces are like an archaeological dig into her past work. Each bit of paper reveals her painting and drawing history--like the way her grandmother would make quilts from all the worn clothes of the family. Letting these scraps of ruined works build new pieces is a very conscious act of acceptance.
Bardo #14 | Collage
$800
9.5 X 22
The Bardo series is a recent series created as a response to the 2021 death of her best friend Julie Green, the artist responsible for the Last Supper series. In the Buddhist tradition, the bardo is a period of 49 days after death that represents a liminal space before a soul is reincarnated into the next life. This period is when consciousness is not attached to a physical body. This series, a total of 49 in all when completed, represent these 49 days.
Karen Kunc, a printmaker and book artist, whom Maring admires, said that she became a printmaker because the quality of marks made by her woodcuts was essential in bringing her vision to life in a way that a paint stroke couldn’t. Marvel also needs the very tangible act of destruction and reconstruction to build a composition. She thrives on the fluidity of the process as well as the immediacy.
The Bardo series is a recent series created as a response to the 2021 death of her best friend Julie Green, the artist responsible for the Last Supper series. In the Buddhist tradition, the bardo is a period of 49 days after death that represents a liminal space before a soul is reincarnated into the next life. This period is when consciousness is not attached to a physical body. This series, a total of 49 in all when completed, represent these 49 days.
Bardo #15 | Collage
$600
10 X 8
“Collage, by its nature, encourages spontaneous decision-making and trust in intuition.”
Bardo #16 | Collage
$600
10 X 8
The Bardo series is a recent series created as a response to the 2021 death of her best friend Julie Green, the artist responsible for the Last Supper series. In the Buddhist tradition, the bardo is a period of 49 days after death that represents a liminal space before a soul is reincarnated into the next life. This period is when consciousness is not attached to a physical body. This series, a total of 49 in all when completed, represent these 49 days.
At the core of her practice is a love of and commitment to process. She loves facing a new piece - listening and watching closely to what starts to develop. She loves making visual decisions with color, shape, movement, and line. Artists Joan Mitchell, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Helen Frankenthaler, and Pierre Bonnard are very inspirational. Taking the raw elements of paint, mark, and surface and creating something that resonates on an emotional level is nothing short of magical.
The Bardo series is a recent series created as a response to the 2021 death of her best friend Julie Green, the artist responsible for the Last Supper series. In the Buddhist tradition, the bardo is a period of 49 days after death that represents a liminal space before a soul is reincarnated into the next life. This period is when consciousness is not attached to a physical body. This series, a total of 49 in all when completed, represent these 49 days.
Bardo #17 | Collage
$600
10 X 8
Marvel Maring makes art in order to feel whole. Her collages take disparate parts and surfaces and find order. These collages demand that she trusts the process and stay open and alert. This practice is a very tangible example of embracing all her so-called “mistakes” and transforming them into something fresh and lively. Philip Guston said, “What joy it is for paint to become a thing- a being. Believe in this miracle - it is your only hope.” Maring believes in this miracle.
Bardo #18 | Collage
$600
10 X 8
The Bardo series is a recent series created as a response to the 2021 death of her best friend Julie Green, the artist responsible for the Last Supper series. In the Buddhist tradition, the bardo is a period of 49 days after death that represents a liminal space before a soul is reincarnated into the next life. This period is when consciousness is not attached to a physical body. This series, a total of 49 in all when completed, represent these 49 days.
“My work also embraces so-called ‘failures’ and helps challenge my binary thinking of what is good or bad, success or failure.”
Marvel Maring
@marvelmaring
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