MARLOWE EMERSON

My work is about exploring the limits of spontaneity in painting and drawing, playing with a tension between simplicity and complexity. I love the emotion of color and the immediacy of scribbling, mark making, and other expressionist techniques. The resulting layers of paint and paper become a testament to the ways in which art records individual experience. The process is intuitive and personal. It contrasts the attitude of organic forms frozen in time to the vibrant energy of the brushstroke. The collage elements are obtained through drawing or photography, then sometimes digitally altered. Working with a range of media, including acrylic paints, various qualities of paper, and different types of pastels and pencils helps to achieve a complex, textured finish.

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Marlowe Emerson is a mixed media artist from Virginia Beach, Virginia who creates large scale abstract paintings using acrylic and collage techniques. She received a BS in French and Art History from Georgetown University, after which she spent seven years studying painting in the south of France. Her work has been shown in museums and galleries along the East Coast. She currently teaches abstract painting at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. The primary focus of her work is the intuitive process of painting and the value of abstract expressionism as a meditative practice.