Marie Soderlund’s expression through art reveals her lust for life with vibrant portraits of friends, dance and nature in saturated flowing hues. Her journey back to watercolors took on a passiont passion embracing the serenity of gazing at the stillness of water graced by floating lotus blossoms that create a "distorted reality". One can escape into the depths of illusions through the careful layering of color and flowing lines Marie presents in these enchanting works.
During the pandemic, Marie explored the use of acrylics as she focused on portraiture as a way of bringing people into her life while being sequestered from the general public. While she found satisfaction and solace in the human faces she rendered, watercolors called her back to the layering and lines that are so integral to her work. The colors of the sunsets in New Mexico called her deeper still into her journey through color and texture.
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Growing up, the artist was moved back and forth between Sweden and the U.S., almost like a military family. She never really established any roots until the age of 10, when the family made the final move from Sweden to the USA. Drawing had always been her way to escape and integrate her experiences by coloring her world.
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The first painting Marie Soderlund made that got attention was created from five photographs the artist had taken of local magnolias,
the blossoms in various stages. She found that she had a natural ability to use the flow of watercolor and recognize “mistakes” that would happen during the process and become part of the painting. While many feel that watercolors are unforgiving, Marie has a symbiotic relationship with the medium.
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Seven years ago, leaving California after living there for over 40 years, the artist set her sights on Santa Fe. Drawn here by the art, the life, the architecture, the food and the skiing, Marie and new love, Jon, flourished in the Land of Enchantment. Gardening and music became ways to paint the canvas of life. New Mexico's landscapes and vast skies whispered insistently to be brought into her studio.
While realizing she doesn't really have a "niche", so common to many expert artists, she is constantly painting outside the box and exploring different themes. Her latest "reality" paintings of frogs and plants have stretched even her wildest imagination of what is possible. Even more recently, she explored a very distorted view of chickens, painting them in a variety of neon colors. Her "Hey, You!" was chosen to be part of a showing at ArtMozaik, a gallery on the prestigious Canyon Road in Santa Fe. "The dream of showing at a gallery there came at me so unexpectedly, it took me a while to feel like I've made it! I am very proud of my new body of work and hope they bring a bit of beauty and joy into other people’s worlds. I know there’s a lot more inside of me whispering to get out, so keep looking! " - Marie Soderlund