Marsha Staiger

MARSHA STAIGER

COLORFUL, ACRYLIC, GRAFT

Alexandria, VA

For inspiration, Marsha looks to the Washington Color School. The Washington Color School, also known as the Washington, D.C., Color School, was an art movement starting during the 1950s–1970s in Washington, D.C., in the United States, built of abstract expressionist artists. The movement emerged during a time when society, the arts, and people were changing quickly.

Marsha uses acrylics to paint on paper that has not been treated to gain that absorption and freshness that happens because of the white of the paper. Medium and support merge and become equal. Marsha uses the word Graft in all of her paintings that contain stripes or strata. In 2014, she started by using tape for a clean line and then reusing the tape for other paintings. It felt like grafting skin to a new surface. Marsha is particularly interested in how the organic mark works with the formally controlled mark. She allows you to look through the surface and dive into the glimpses of what is beneath.... resurface and grasp, acknowledge the cords of color, texture, and surface.