Marlene Steele  
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landscapes
"...there is a constant in the work...an energetic freshness founded upon sound drawing and painting principles."
      And again, "the vitality of Marlene Steele's urban landscapes...will surprise and delight you"
  Michael Culver, Curator, Museum of Art Ogunquit, Maine: reaction to work included in "A KENTUCKY SHOW" (1989) Museum Publication


Title: Reflections in Ruins
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 40 x 50
Framed with recessed brown wood

DISCUSSION OF THE NEW WORK: “REFLECTIONS IN RUIN”

Awarded the “JOAN CORD AWARD OF EXCELLENCE”  May 20, 2007

Painting specs:  Oil on canvas 
Dimentions: 40W x 50H  framed with recessed brown wood.

Reflections in Ruins: This painting is taken from the southeast corner of Vine Street and McMillan during the demolition of the disco club named “Reflections”. The composition juxtaposes the stately dark gothic forms of old St. Georges Church above the demo staging on a particularly bright and sunny day.

Characteristic of this new series is a fresh look at pictorial textures i.e., weeds, detritus and debris, graffiti as elements depicting themes of inner city turmoil, destruction and renewal and urban industrial sitesI have introduced the palette knife in the painting process to add dimension and surface texture to the painting that make even more physical the features of the site portrayed.

 

     


Title: Cenfab I
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 48 x 40

 

Title: Willa Mae's Front Yard
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 45 x 38
 

Title: Domicile On Central II
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 34 x 34
 

Title: Cecil's Place
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 41 x 29

Urban Landscapes

The industrial environment paintings explore my personal experiences in the commercial manufacturing district surrounding my Cincinnati based studio. In these compositions I am experimenting with new brushwork bravado in a “dirty” color palette. A variety of spatial confrontations present the viewer with an immediate impression of the urban industrial district, replete with litter and debris. A still-life of weeds and wood pallets punctuates the towering cavern with dirty light-filtering panes in “CenFab I”. In another painting, casually collected boards next to a

rusting wood burner actually are the makeshift on-street hovel called “Cecil’s Place”, providing shelter from the heat of summer while displaying his current salvages for sale on the roof. These are not the manicured aprons of suburban industrial parks, where green weedless utopias bask in bright, unclouded horizons. Surfaces of smooth, light reflecting trailer paneling contrast sharply with broken patched brick and scrawling graffiti. This is the blighted war zone of the inner urban, populated with dayworkers and denizens alike.


My paintings of cityscapes materialize from an involvement with the geometry of architectural form and space in the everyday urban environment of Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati. In Northern Kentucky, the subject matter is often the residential and business architecture in the old German neighborhoods of Mainstrasse and Peaselburg. The transient moment of the season captured in the play of the sunlight and the setting of the clouds will be the reason I find compelling to begin to scheme the composition, assigning values and shapes to form and space. In the watercolor entitled “Mother of God Church”, the double spires of Mother of God Church loom loftily in the soft light of autumn. The nearby drug store, Morwessel Drugs, conducts a brisk neighborhood business across from a building with turreted interest.

I begin with a sketch on site, often in pencil and watercolor, small in scale. The reason for this exercise is to capture in concise brevity the initial inspiration. My objective becomes grabbing what nuances and related details drew my imagination in the first place. These sketches become the basis of an oil painting executed in the studio. I have often augmented the concepts with photographs made same day or under different circumstances. Revisiting the site often and under different


circumstances triggers the original inspiration and begins the process of distillation, a sifting of minutiae into a swirling symphonic revelation that becomes the substance of a painting. The ability to articulate feelings with the strokes of a brush and a combination of colors and shapes is like being entranced by a magical symphony, even more magical if the elements involved seem on first perception merely quotidian, even urbane.

 

     
redwhiteblue redwhiteblue winter

Title: Cenfab Fall
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size:48 x 48

Title: Red, White, Blue
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size:30 x 40

Title: Winter
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size:30 x 40
     
old st george

Title: Old St. George Church
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size:48 x 36

Title:Summer Light In Covington
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 21 x 35
Private Collection

Title: White Garage
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 34 x 24
     

Title: Garage With Green Shape
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 40 x 20

Title: Bellevue Bungalow
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 50 x 60

Title: Lateral Space With Ladder
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 24 x26
Collection: Merril-Dow Pharmaceuticals Corp.
     

Title: Lateral Space III
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 30 x 34

Title: Sixth Street Sentinels II
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 30 x 19

Title: Gingerbread on Main Strasse II
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 40 x 26
     
fall2008

Title: Gingerbread on Main Strasse I
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size:40 x 26
Collection: Cincinnati Financial Corp.

Title: Mother of God Church
Medium: Water Color
Size:12 x 16
Available as a Signed & Numbered
Limited Edition Print (500 Print Run).
Price: $175.00 plus S&H.
Title: Cincinnati, Ohio
Medium: Watercolor
Size:18 x 24
Available as a print $150.00