STATEMENT OF WORK

As a young artist attending graduate school in Buffalo, NY (1978), I was defined by the "Pictures Generation” and part of the Buffalo avant-garde during a period of dynamic expansion in media arts, film, and photography.  This has been the foundational influence of my work throughout my career.  Fellow students Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, and Charlie Clough founded the alternative space, "Hallwalls".  After graduate school we all left Buffalo for the larger art world of NYC.

Since then, my paintings have evolved over 40 years to portray universal issues which are deeply personal and profoundly human.  My professional career and studio practice has focused on creating figurative paintings that explore the human condition and our connection with the natural world. In my early work (1978-1986), single figures portraying images of their sorrow, pain, trauma, and inner wounding, served as inspiration toward healing, self-growth and transcendence. In the late 1980’s through the 1990’s I painted many large diptychs which paired a figure with animals or landscape to emphasize that a connection with nature is necessary to heal our wounded souls.   The figures portrayed are large-scale and two- or three-times life size.

After my child was born my work throughout the 2000’s amplifies thoughts around the question, “what will we leave of the earth for future generations” and my concern for the changing climate.  I began to incorporate text, images of children, nature, prayer (representing focused energy -- not religious ideology), and the ethereal realms of memories, dreams, and spirit.  These images float around or within the figures, depicting a merging of these worlds. I have always mined the experiences of my own life, (searching for a universal truth within that experience,) to serve as a road map for my work.  The painting “Death is a Hard Teacher” (2022) has a quote scratched onto the surface, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  While this painting came from the experience of suffering a personal loss, it caused me to reflect on the many traumas of our current world situation and the issues of loss, betrayal, pain and grief.   

In my 2017 catalogue Lucy Lippard wrote “The notion of place as a spiritual antidote, nature as a sanctuary, is familiar in the ancient cultures of the southwest, in its art and its continuous allure for those of us from elsewhere.  Sorrow is not denied, but acknowledged and transcended by earth, water, sky.  In a sense Marsh’s work is a plea for understanding, a personal and unifying need or desire that is offered to the viewer as a gift.”

My current paintings portray images depicting the importance of our connection with the natural world, reveal a spiritual or mystical realm, and are intended as a conduit toward awakening in the human heart, compassion for all life.