Claudia Marseille: Urban Markings at Seager Gray Gallery

CLAUDIA MARSEILLE : URBAN MARKINGS

CLAUDIA MARSEILLE : URBAN MARKINGS

CLAUDIA MARSEILLE : URBAN MARKINGS

Exhibition: January 27 - February 28, 2018 Reception for the Artist: Saturday, February 3, 5:30 - 7:30 pm Front Cover: Discoteque (detail), 2016, mixed media and encaustic, 40 x 30 in Back Cover: She Found Someone Better, (detail), 2017, mixed media and encaustic, 30 x 36 in Photo Credit: Claudia Marseille

Direct all inquiries to: Seager Gray Gallery 108 Throckmorton Ave. Mill Valley, CA 94941 All rights reserved.

She Found Someone Better, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 30 x 36 in (Brooklyn)

URBAN MARKINGS IN ENCAUSTICS As I walk the streets of my metropolitan world I find scarred, tarnished metal jutting against a surreal collage of torn posters. A schedule of events is stapled onto defaced surfaces between layers of ripped papers. A flowering foliage of multi-colored scribbles asserts itself. All this provides a bridge between my inner world and the outer landscape of urbanization and globalization.

My heart leaps at the gnarled beauty, the ravaged splendor constructed at the edge of vandalism, sedimented evidence of the world we have created. Natural erosion, Time’s brush, leaves behind modern hieroglyphics, frayed fragments of lives lived.

Sometimes it is written in plain English, like when I came across the scrawled words spray painted in white enamel across a jagged red, green and gray graffiti wall – She found someone better...

Claudia Marseille, February, 2018

Discoteque, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 40 x 30 in (Buenos Aires)

What does the artist do? He draws connections. He ties the invisible threads between things.

He dives into history, be it the history of mankind, the geological history of the Earth or the beginning and end of the manifest cosmos.

- Anselm Kiefer

Claudia Marseille has always been deeply aware of seeing and hearing. Born hearingimpaired and wearing hearing aids since the age of three, she felt she had to be particularly observant of the world. With this keenly developed focus and her considerable intelligence, she has effectively trained herself to see the world as a network of symbols and clues that reveal associations and meanings not always immediately apparent.

In this newest body of work, Marseille explores what she calls “universal hieroglyphics” using as her inspiration photographs of walls she has taken herself in her many travels around the world. What she discovered is a morphed universal language where something becomes other than it was originally. By incorporating her images with their torn edges of advertisements, posters and graffiti into her encaustic paintings she captures the layered elements of time, communication and tattered bits of popular culture. She takes the scarred beauty she sees in these images and integrates them into masterful encaustic paintings.

On first glance the images reminded me of the French artist, Jacques Villeglé famous for his work in “decollage”, where he would rip and excavate thick layers of posters taken from French advertising kiosks. Villeglé too saw beauty in decay and found a fascination with letters as symbols. Marseille does not alter the actual found markings, instead she brings in additional visual elements layering them in concert with her own.

For Marseille, the painting process can be likened to that of an archaeological dig – scraping down and revealing past layers – and

Jacques Villeglé, Les Jazzmen, 1961 (Tate Museum, London)

Associacion Rock para Todos, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 40 x 30 in (San Miguel de Allende)

in her case it is a particularly apt metaphor. In college she studied cultural anthropology and archaeology, and in her twenties worked on a number of excavations. “I love to travel, soaking in the richness of colors, the diversity of different cultures, and taking in the residues of ancient times. At the same time, I am continually struck and touched by the universals across human civilization. I bring back from these journeys artifacts that are meaningful and incorporates them into the work—whether they are photographs that inspire me, or actual materials, which she collages into her paintings.”

In Urban Markings we see the culmination of this process, where new events and signposts quickly cover the layers of not ancient but very recent civilization. What is relevant changes and shifts quickly leaving only traces and the beauty of torn edges and decoded information.

All of this is enhanced by Marseille’s signature palette and adept use of encaustic - a medium in which few are her equals. Made by combining refined beeswax, powdered pigment and damar resin. She says, “I love encaustic painting because the process is very physical and direct. Its fluidity makes it possible to achieve a tremendous variety of surfaces, from a smooth skin-like membrane to very rough textures. Its evocative nature is very suited to my interests in layers of history, the process of time and archaeology.”

It has been fourteen years since I first discovered Claudia Marseille’s work and began our history of regular one-person exhibitions. Her work is marked by an extraordinary intelligence, patience, dedication and integrity – a clear and conscious resolve to mine both internal and external landscapes for clues and meanings that can be found beneath the surface.

Encounters, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 36 x 24 in (Berlin)

Legs, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 48 x 35 in (East Village, NYC)

Lo Mejor, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 40 x 60 in (Guanajuato, Mexico)

Looking for Girlfriend, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 42 x 32 in (Brooklyn)

Priority Mail, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 42 x 32 in (Oakland)

room 16, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 60 x 40 in (Berlin)

San Miguel de Allende II, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 60 x 20 in (San Miguel de Allende)

San Miguel de Allende III, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 36 x 24 in (San Miguel de Allende)

San Miguel de Allende IV, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 40 x 30 in (San Miguel de Allende)

Taxi, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 40 x 60 in (Hanoi)

Who Would Have Thought, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 60 x 44 in (Atotonilco, Mexico)

Lips, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 40 x 60 in (Berlin)

Black, Pink and Green, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 42 x 34 in (Berlin)

Colors of My Dream, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 46 x 35 in (Berlin)

Six, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 44 x 60 in (Berlin)

Signs and Graff iti Prohibited, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 35 x 46 in (Chelsea)

Around, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 36 x 24 in (Luebeck, Germany)

Breaking Free, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 60 x 44 in (Berlin)

Semicircles, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 30 x 40 in (Berlin)

Quintett, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 36 x 24 in (Berlin)

Telephone Pole, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 30 x 22.5 in (Berkeley)

Street Life, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 30 x 20 in (Berlin)

Minima, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 20 x 30 in (Hamburg)

NYC, 2016 mixed media and encaustic 24 X 20 in (Chelsea)

In the Archives 2016 mixed media and encaustic 24 X 20 in (Hamburg)

Stop, 2017 mixed media and encaustic 24 X 18 in (St. Petersburg)

CLAUDIA MARSEILLE EDUCATION

2000 MFA in Painting. John F. Kennedy Univ., Orinda, CA

1994-96 California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland CA

1975 MA Pre-Columbian Archaeology,

Institute of Archaeology, London

1972 BA Anthropology/Archaeology.

University of California, Berkeley, CA

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2018 Urban Marks, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA 2014 Engrams, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA 2012 Journeys, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA 2010 Surface Depths, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael 2008 New Paintings: 2007-2008, Donna Seager Gallery,

San Rafael, CA 2006 Unearthing Color, Donna Seager Gallery,

San Rafael, CA 2005 Archaeology of Color, Contemporary Fine Art Gallery,

San Anselmo, CA 2004 Passage of Time, Contemporary Fine Art Gallery,

San Anselmo, CA 2003 New Works in Oil and Encaustic, The Club at the

Claremont Hotel, Berkeley, CA Springfever - Recent Paintings, 50 Fremont Street,

San Francisco, CA Recent Paintings in Oil and Encaustic,

Merced College Art Gallery, Merced, CA 2002 Encaustic Paintings, 1078 Gallery, Chico, CA Recent Paintings, 455 Market Street,

San Francisco, CA 2001 Recent Encaustic Paintings, Runyon, Saltzman and

Einhorn, Sacramento, CA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2017 Markings, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA 2017 New Year’s Group Exhibition, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA

2017 artMkt, International Art Fair, San Francisco, CA

2016 Holiday Exhibition of select Gallery Artists, Seager Gray

Gallery, Mill Valley, CA

2015 artMkt, International Art Fair, San Francisco, CA 2015 Lyrical Abstraction, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA 2014 New Space Inauguration Show, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA

2013 artMRKT, International Art Fair, San Francisco, CA

2012 Inaugural Exhibition, Gallery 65, McLean, VA

2012 Aqua Art Miami, International Art Fair, Miami, FL

2011 Aqua Art Miami, International Art Fair, Miami, FL

Alumni Exhibition, 3 person show,

JFK University Gallery, Berkeley CA Inaugural Exhibition, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA

2010 Aqua Art Miami, International Art Fair, Miami, FL

2009 Alumni Exhibition 2009, John F. Kennedy University

Gallery, Berkeley, CA

2007 Flow Art Fair Miami / December 6-9

(Exhibited by Donna Seager Gallery) 2005 Grand Opening Exhibition, Donna Seager Gallery,

San Rafael, CA 2004 Contemporary Abstracts, Alameda Art Center, Alameda, CA

Jack London Square Art Program, Oakland, CA

2003 2003 National Juried Exhibition,

Artisans, Mill Valley, CA, 2nd prize

Juried Annual 2002-2003 Show, Pro Arts, Oakland, CA

Annual Member’s Showcase, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA

2002 18th Annual Juried Show, Gallery Route One,

Point Reyes, CA

40th Annual Regional Juried Art Show, Fairfield Visual

Arts Association, Fairfield, CA; 1st and 3rd prize for

painting, and Juror’s award Recent Paintings, Matrix Gallery, Sacramento, CA Recent Works, Mad River Post, Corporate offices,

San Francisco, CA 2001 Recent Paintings, Art Foundry Gallery, Sacramento, CA

Alumni Exhibition 2001, John F. Kennedy University

Gallery, Berkeley, CA Arts On Fire 5, Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, CA, Merit award Bay Area Art IV, Napa Valley College Gallery, CA CloseUpClose, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, CA Secrets, Artisans, Mill Valley, CA

Annual Members’ Showcase, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA 2’x2’ Annual Exhibition, John F. Kennedy University

Gallery, Berkeley, CA 2000 California Small Works 12th Annual Exhibition,

Sonoma Museum of Visual Art, Santa Rosa, CA

Bold Expressions, Sacramento Fine Arts Center, Carmichael, CA

1999 69th Annual Statewide Exhibit, Santa Cruz Art League,

Santa Cruz, CA Beyond the Garden Gate, Artisans, Mill Valley, CA From A Woman’s Perspective, San Francisco Women

Artists’ Gallery, San Francisco, CA, Merit Award In Our Gardens: Flora and Fauna, Danville Fine Arts

Gallery, Danville, CA

Annual Members’ Showcase, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA 1998 Cornucopia, San Francisco Women Artists’ Gallery,

San Francisco, CA, Merit Award L’eau, San Francisco Women Artists’ Gallery,

San Francisco, CA, Merit Award The Child Within, San Francisco Women Artists’