About Marci
Marci Von Aldenbruck is a Portland, Oregon artist whose original art is influenced by the impressionist and post-impressionist movements, modernists Matisse, Picasso, Monet, and O’Keefe. Her works explore the intertwining of emotion and feelings with the observable qualities of the world around her. She is deeply interested in how colors found both in life and in the arts affect mood and emotional reception.
“When initially asked to write about my thoughts on my work I initially experienced some concern that it may affect me. I don’t like to analyze my work or my approach for fear that the spontaneity and intuitiveness that I value so much in my paintings may be dampened. Yet here I am writing, and the reflection has provided me a good observation point or reference point for future direction.
I have always been drawn to a place, a subject, by smells, sounds, quality, and intensity of light, and the feelings I experience there. I bring this experience into my paintings by letting intuition take the reins, painting by feeling and not by any pre-intention or pre-direction other than simply wanting to get the full experience onto canvas. Not what I saw, but what I experienced.
I work mainly from within myself. Even though my art is a visual expression, it arises from my emotions of joy, passion, sensuality, love. I am also curious; I love letting intuition and play take over, being adventurous with color, form, texture, whatever moves me in the moment. While I will pull references from life, or photos to inspire me, once I set brush to canvas, I let my imagination flow.
During painting, my journey may go deeper as the experience of working with the media mingles with the memories and feelings I’m extracting, creating a new experience, new ideas. When painting intuitively, the tools become subconscious extensions of myself, colors may move into forms less abstract, remembered sounds may be interpreted into strokes like a code. As I work to somehow reproduce my memory of a frozen moment, the light, the air, colors, sounds, the stillness, I often am hoping my efforts communicate a gentle joy to someone who sees it, a recognition of a similar remembered moment, an introspection of what we share as humans.
The creation of a painting or drawing is a meditation allowing me to stay a while longer in a moment that spoke to me. When I am working, I find myself apart from the distraction of the past and the uncertainty of the future. I experience an island of silence: an oasis that allows me to contemplate, savor and render a world apart from everyday reality. Hopefully, my finished works allow the observer to share this experience of inner peace.”
My work is also featured on Society6.
