Marilène Phipps — Contemporary Art Curator Magazine

Biography

MARILÈNE PHIPPS was born and grew up in Haiti. She is a recipient of the NAACP’s Award of Excellence for outstanding commitment in advancing the culture and causes for communities of color. Phipps held fellowships at the Guggenheim Foundation, Harvard’s Bunting Institute, the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, and the Center for the Study of World Religions.
Phipps has presented and lectured about her work in numerous places such as the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC, the Detroit Institute of Art, the Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the Art Institute of Boston.
Her paintings can be seen in several public collections in the US and abroad, such as the Museum of the NCAAA in Boston, the Fuller Museum of Art in MA, the Mexicarte Museum in Texas, the Mattatuck Museum and the Discovery Museum in CT where she won the prize for best painting. Her work was shown at the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Cairo Museum of Modern Art, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, and the Mupanah Museum in Haiti.

Artist Statement

I paint to celebrate Creation and my participation in it.
My work draws from the powerful sensations and visual excitement of childhood. This was a time when the physical world held untranslatable magic, when people and animals seemed mysteriously connected to their surroundings and to an invisible yet palpable realm.
I aim for beauty, poetry, truth, and order, focusing on enchantment. My compositions depict people, animals, landscapes and still-life as metaphors for particular states of being. I invite viewers into a dialogue by presenting them with an idea in visual terms, one related to the human and physical world we share.
The overtones of my earlier work have been about promoting the knowledge, appreciation and respect for Haiti and its culture. I now move in a varied American culture that influences my sensibility and inspiration differently.
I start my creative process when an image presents itself to my mind. I organize the image on canvas. I draw with brush and paint. I work one piece at a time. I keep holding its hand until it has crossed over to our world. It lives so that its message, its color and surface texture might reveal the attentiveness of my heart.

Website: www.marilenephippscom