Marius Starkey

Marius at Legion of Honor Sept 18 2010

marius — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:59:55 +0000

What: “Paris, City of Lights”
Where: Legion of Honor, Main Lobby, San Francisco
When: 12:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Marius will be showing his paintings and will be demonstrating his painting techniques from 12 to 3pm on Sat Sept 18th at the Legion of Honor to celebrate Legion of Honor’s show called “Paris, City of Lights” I will be painting from a photograph and creating a new image.

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Marius at the De Young Museum of Art May 28th 2010

marius — Wed, 19 May 2010 04:44:27 +0000

Piazzoni Murals Room
6:00–8:45 p.m.
Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musee d’Orsay painting demonstration by San Francisco artist Marius Starkey. Marius demonstrates the same techniques used by the artists who are included in this exciting exhibition. Watch Marius do a landscape painting, create a pastel, and make a watercolor. Talk to Marius and ask questions as he works and enjoy a very creative moment at the de Young Museum.

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Open Studio Oct. 31-Nov. 1st @ Hunter’s Point Shipyard

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:36:05 +0000

I’m participating in this year’s Open Studios at Hunter’s Point Shipyard. You can find me and a collection of my work at Building No. 116, Studio #10. The studios are open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. I’m looking forward to seeing you!

View Map Here!

Painting Demonstration – Video

marius — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:57:11 +0000

The Story Of Diego Rivera and Charisma

admin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:52:50 +0000

I always start my art residences, by giving a lecture on the lives of a few artists. I began one class by talking about the great Mexican muralist, Diego Riviera, partly because the class was mainly made up of Latino students. I needed them to know about the intense and unremitting labor required to create a great work of art. And yet, I also wanted them to know that even a rather over-weight ugly man with bulging eyes could still be charming and successful during his life. He was famous not only for his great work and talent, but also for his charismatic personally. Everyone wanted to be around him and in spite of his appearance many found him irresistible and exciting. As I ended my lecture, one rather over-weight student raised his hand and asked, “Were can I get some charisma?”

The Best Day Of My Life

admin — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:38:33 +0000

At the beginning of many of my art residency, I have a color mixing session, as many of my students have never had an art class before so they have no knowledge of mixing colors. After explaining the process, I noticed one student looking quite wide-eyed. As I walked over to his desk I asked, “How are you doing?” He looked up at me sort of bewildered and said in all seriousness, “This is the best day of my life!” I asked, “why?” He answered, “Because its magic. I can make my own colors, the way I want.” This human act changed something in his life. By simply mixing colors, he now knows how to control his own art world, which filled him with awe!

Open Studio

admin — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:26:56 +0000

The Open Studio at Hunters Point Ship Yard (www.hunterspointcommunity.com) was a great success. Some 400 people came to the building 116 studio 10 to see my work along with my studio mate Rob Cox. May 2nd and 3rd saw some 150 studios open to the public and even with the rain many people came to see the artist work. I sold three paintings and talked with so many people who came into my studio…it was great!

The recent sales include an abstract painting on paper that I did last year. It was a painting that was slated for a commission that was not chosen but it is still a very good abstract and I was very pleased that it found a good collector to own it And I sold a small oil on panel to a collector in Oakland, California and another Pastel to collectors in Pacifica, California.

How I Ran Over My Own Painting

marius — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:37:57 +0000

One day while driving outside of Taos, I spotted my next landscape to paint. I parked myself about 10 feet inside the entrance of a dirt road. I quickly unloaded my painting materials and set-up my easel. After sometime, I was approached by a Pueblo police officer that demanded I get off their property. Unbeknown to me, I had wandered into private Pueblo Indian land. I apologized and quickly began to pack up my things.

In my haste to drive away, I forget to pick up my painting and left it near the front tire of my car. I had just started to drive the car when I felt it had run over something. Almost instantly, I remembered that I had not loaded the painting I’d been working on. I jumped out and saw I had indeed run over my own painting. The canvas was face down with the car tire still on it. I quickly moved the car off the painting; amazingly, the painting was still intact. I simply brushed off the dirt and gravel from the surface of the canvas and placed it inside the car. Later, I finished that painting on location but this time outside the private Indian land. I recently sold this painting, which I named “Taos Mountain” because it was a picture with great texture – lots of dirt that was embedded into the paint and power from its ordeal of being created.

The Woman And The Bear

marius — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:25:08 +0000

A few years back, I won the Helene Wurlitzer award for painting; the prize was a three-month residency in Taos, New Mexico. One day, I found myself painting just at the edge of town when a heavyset woman sprang out from a house nearby with a shotgun and four little, yapping dogs. Walking towards me, she said that she’d seen a bear around earlier that morning and that I had better watch out. Afterward, she lumbered back towards her ramshackle house trailed by her four little dogs. I quickly finished my painting as fast as I could because I didn’t want to hang around and wait to have either her or the bear come back!

Landscape Painting

admin — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:12:48 +0000

I have always found power, energy, and inspiration from the locations that I use as subjects for my paintings. It is the give and take from the view where I stand, the time of day, the temperature, the wind, and the light that fuse my attention and direct how I will interpret that landscape. Many times I will have the image of the landscape in my mind from previous visits to the site. The image has been burned into my psyche and will not let me go until I realize a painting of that place. My mood dictates what palette of colors I prepare on that day. When I arrive I may even start painting without drawing. I want to react to the location emotionally and show how I feel about the spot through the colors. I do not record a place in a way of the Impressionist’s painters; instead I am reacting from within, changing my color use according to how I am experiencing the place and not just how I am seeing it. Within my mind and in the composition I may coax buildings closer to one another or drift a tree, a path, or a body of water further from my view. It feels right when I make these changes, not only for my composition but also for the emotional impact that I want to convey about of the place. Many times I will find myself elevating above the scene in my mind. It’s my consciousness floating from my body over the land and painting it from a different vantage point, literally levitating above it.

Though Vincent Van Gogh’s attacks of the canvas with jabs and punches of color and force have inspired how I apply my paint, I do differ from him in the end results. I want the viewers of my paintings to be surprised and shocked at my choices of colors so they are seeing a landscape that cannot be real but somehow exists on the canvas. Armed with my brushes, palette and favorite palette knife, I use thin layers of paint to begin to build the image. Different types of brush strokes rise from my body to take on forms that attract me. Some times I paint very fast, then slowly – the tempo varying according the varying emotions of the composition. I am always amazed at what I am looking at: the colors, forms and light vie for my attention, screaming to be included in my composition to convey my emotions. I use a multitude of brushes, not wanting to stop working to clean them, the unexpected colors surprise and stir me. And when I finally stop, I have spent my paint and feel drained of excitement and my inner vision is completed so I no longer feel I just have to paint that place.