Selected Exhibits & Highlights
- Art Gallery Coordinator Somers Public Library, Somers NY 1992-2001
- Paintbox Award, Art Show: Bedford, Bedford Village, NY 1995
- Emilie Baker Kellogg Award, Art Show: Bedford, Bedford Village, NY 1992
- Illustrator Peace Corps/Nicaragua 1977-1978
- Mills College, Oakland CA BFA 1973
- Hallmark Purchase Prize, Urbana IL 1967
Guilds and Associations
- Orange County Artists Guild, NC 2003-present
- Durham Arts Guild,NC 2003-present
- Yorktown Council for the Arts, NY 1998-2000
- Putnam Arts Council, NY 1994-2000
- Pacific Art League of Palo Alto, CA 1987-1989
Past Gallery Representation
- APW Gallery, Long Island City, NY [current]
- Somerstown Studios and Galleries, Somers, NY
- Atherton Gallery, Menlo Park, CA
- Scarborough Galley, Chappaqua, NY
- Beagle Gallery, Peekskill, NY
- Owl 57 Gallery, Woodmere L.I., NY
- The Country Framer Ltd, Mahopac, NY
Selected Group Exhibitions
- Fine Arts Festival, Arts Council of Moore County - 2nd Prize in Watercolor by judge Susan Schroth, senior curator of the Nasher Museum at Duke University 2009
- From the Center Out: Piedmont Artists Celebrate North Carolina, Art & Soul Studios, Mebane, NC 2009
- Arts Anonymous, Arts Council of Moore County , Southern Pines, NC 2009
- Annual Piedmont Farm Tour Exhibit, Panzanella, Carrboro, NC 2008 - 2009
- OCAG Open Studio Tour, Chapel Hill, NC 2003-present
- Elements Exhibit, Chapel Hill Arts Commission 2008
- Chapel Hill Bible Church numerous group shows from Fall 2002-2007
- Why? Exhibit CH Arts Commission 2007
- Lost and Found Exhibit CH Arts Commission 2006
- Arts At the Meadow, Meadowmont, Chapel Hill, NC 2003-2004
- Art Show Bedford, Bedford Village NY 1984-2000
- Hudson Valley Art Association 68th Annual Exhibition at the Newington-Cropsey Foundation Gallery, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 1999
- Armonk Annual Outdoor Art Show, Armonk, NY 1986-1996
- Annual United Nations Exhibition NYC 1986
Selected Solo Exhibitions
- NC Women's Hospital Information Center 2007
- Cup A Joe's, Chapel Hill, NC 2004, 2007
- NC Botanical Gardens Totten Center 2005
- Caffe Driade, Chapel Hill, NC 2005
- Churton Street Gallery, Hillsborough, NC 2005
- Chapel Hill Public Library 2002
- U.S. Embassy, Managua, Nicaragua Solo Exhibition 1978
Media and Publications
- NC Women's Hospital Center Women's Information Center calendar 2008
- Somers Public Library, Somers NY artist interviewer for local cable television "Off the Walls" program 2000-2001
- Putnam Hospital Center spring calendar, NY 1997
- Make a Wish Foundation of the Hudson Valley Black Tie Dinner program cover and illustrations 1990
- Methodist Memoirs and Vignettes, Mt. Kisco, NY cover and illustrations 1987
Biography & Statement
Marilyn Ormsbee Strother is a native of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Growing up in the Midwest, spending summers on the beaches of Southern California, and backpacking with her family in, at the time, virtually unpeopled places like the Sierras, all contributed to her love and appreciation of creation. When she was a junior in high school Hallmark bought one of her watercolors for their collection. Marilyn went on to receive her BFA with honors from Mills College in Oakland, California under the tutelage of Ralph Du Casse.
Through years of self-discipline and of having a strong sense of purpose, Marilyn cultivated her talent at every opportunity. Along the way she worked as a graphic artist and mural painter. She studied watercolor painting under Timothy Clark in California and also under Billy Morrow Jackson in Illinois. She was an artist in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua where she illustrated a book on the flora of the Santiago Volcano National Park. She has exhibited in many one-woman shows and outdoor art fairs across the country. She also was privileged to show her work in such places as the United Nations in Manhattan and the distinguished Newington-Cropsey Gallery in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.
Marilyn Strother explores pattern, metaphors and playfulness in her paintings. She is influenced by a lifelong love of nature, many years of gardening and a strong connection to Oriental culture due to her years spent in the San Francisco Bay area. Her natural subjects are rendered realistically with great sensitivity to color. Her best artistic moments have been experiencing how relationships in nature and in things show themselves. It is remarkable how the flow of pigment in water during the artistic rendering of a leaf or petal is so like the flow of life in the plants themselves. Especially in autumn, one can observe the foliage pigment changing, or retreating from it's growing season colors. Metaphors abound in nature and there is a constant narration of this to the artist as she works.
"I prefer to work from life and begin almost all of my watercolors starting with a pencil drawing of the subject directly onto the paper. Many pieces are composites made from two or three different real elements in my surroundings with an imaginary background. It's fun to do. My total range of subjects has always been very eclectic, including night scenes, antique elements in still lifes, and Biblical themes, as well as the use of Japanese patterns and of gold leaf."
A few years ago Marilyn began to explore the joys of oil painting and is beginning to include pieces in this medium in her exhibitions.
The artist currently resides in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
"Light is the only actor." Johannes Vermeer 1632-1675 - the original "painter of light"