Marilee Taussig
Marilee Taussig’s paintings will be on display in the main hallways of Heron Point starting September 2nd. The opening reception will be held on Sept 15th at 11:30 – 1:30pm.
Marilee Taussig has been a painter all her life, working in many mediums including oil, dye on silk, watercolor and alcohol ink. After a lifetime of travel, she moved to the Eastern Shore and the scenery and people here have become her primary subject matter.
Her subject matter for her paintings comes from the natural world, but she does not label herself as neither“realistic” or “abstract” artist label. Often choosing to straddle traditional categories, she sums up the work this way: “If it’s a landscape, it might just on the cusp of turning into a face, or a figure. If it’s a face or a figure, it might be taking on aspects of landscape. If it is of any ‘thing’ at all, it better be balanced and in color harmony, even if you hang it upside down. Nailing down the subject matter of a painting feels like an exercise in arrogance and ego to me. The best paintings are on the overlap between the artist’s mind’s eye and the viewer’s experience, so if I’ve done my work well, a painting should beckon the viewer down a path (“Is that a ______? flower, river, face, canyon, wrinkle, plant, torso, stream), without ever nailing it down. Nailing it down is boring. Let the viewer decide what it is.”
Until her recent (semi) retirement and move to the Eastern Shore in 2016, Marilee always juggled her art with her non-art “day jobs”. While never counting on her art to pay all the bills, she always endeavored to create her art at a serious level. Along the way, from the 1980s onward, while working professionally in the role of corporate trainer/consultant and in the travel industry, she simultaneously illustrated books professionally, exhibited in solo shows, the Rittenhouse Square Fine Art Show and the Woodmere Art Museum.
Her career in the travel industry caused her to spend many months a year in Europe and many of her recent work (included in this show) are of the people and the places of the South of France, a place she considers a second home. In particular, the golden stone architecture of the Dordogne and the medieval Provencal village of Vence are featured. She travels to the South of France to paint nearly every year in villages where the light is unforgettable, and the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists lived and flourished
Artwork by Marilee Taussig
In 2016, she discovered the medium of alcohol ink, a relatively new medium, and quickly fell in love with it, particularly because it is nearly impossible to control. Along the way, she became a founding contributor to the Alcohol Ink Art Community Facebook Group, with current membership of 40,000+ members. She has taught this medium at the Academy of Art Museum of Easton, the RiverArts of Chestertown, Center for Creative Arts in Hockessin, and Heron Point. She presents nationally at online conferences of other AI artists. Her alcohol ink art has been chosen to display at Art on the Green, the Rehobeth Art League Annual Member Show. In 2019, her alcohol ink jewelry was chosen to be included at the Rehobeth Art League Jewelry Show.
Her small cabin home, which she shares with her husband, a beagle and a second dog of unidentifiable lineage, is perched above the Cabin John Creek, a tributary between the Bohemia and Sassafras River. The loveliness of the 2019 spring lured the artist back to watercolor, and plein air (painting outside) painting in particular. A number of the works in this show are au plein air watercolor, painted from their dock, looking towards the abandoned cabin at the back of the Cabin John Creek. Currently, she finds her attention equally divided between waterscapes and wildlife of her beloved creek, the light of Southern France, and her ongoing lifelong passion for innovative, compelling portraits. She loves being a vendor at the Chestertown Farmer’s Market where she does preliminary sketches for her studio painting work and sells her alcohol ink jewelry. (“little tiny paintings on a chain”)
Marilee is also a member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Chester River and sits on the Community Subcommittee of the Social Action Committee for Racial Justice. She welcomes portrait commissions, and inquiries from art-loving travelers or travel-loving artists who want to travel in Europe, independently, or with the artist.
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