Biography
Marie Fletcher is a self-taught, contemporary artist based in Amarillo, Texas. Born in Manhattan Beach, CA, and raised in Taos, NM, She grew up surrounded by the distinctive landscape, color, and creative spirit of the Southwest.
Before becoming a full time artist, Marie owned and operated her own boutique hair salon in Taos for nearly twenty years, a career that cultivated her instinct for color, texture, composition, and personal expression. During those years, she also developed relationships with members of Taos’s vibrant artistic community, whose creativity and perspectives helped shape her own artistic journey.
Marie now works full-time from her studio in Amarillo, Texas.
Working primarily in acrylic and mixed media, she creates layered, mostly abstract paintings that explore emotion, memory, faith, and relationship through color, texture and mark making.
Artist Statement
My process is often slow, intentional, and quiet, but it can also be bold, playful, and experimental. I build my paintings through thick layers of paint and texture, incorporating torn paper from vintage magazines, remnants of previous projects, sketches, prints, oil pastel, and marks made with pencil, pen or stencils.
I am drawn to the unexpected conversations that happen between these layers- the tension between control and spontaneity,order and disruption, concealment and revelation.
Through this process, I explore emotion and more abstract ideas, including faith. Much of my work is rooted in things that have lived quietly in my heart and soul, waiting to be expressed. I think of a painting as a conversation with God, and I hope my work reflects both gratitude for His creation and the freedom to explore it creatively.
I fell in love with abstract art as a child.I loved the idea that my art didn’t have to look like a thing; it could simply be what was inside of me yearning to come out.
