I grew up in Whitelake, MI although I am currently living in Bellingham, WA now. Some of my earliest memories of artmaking were spent with my grandmother bent over her dining room table with a large sheet of butcher paper covering the table to draw on. Possibly that is why I feel I make my best art when my surfaces are big.

I studied painting and drawing at Grand Valley State University where I got my BA. It was also at GVSU where I fell in love with the medium of oil painting and since my first class I find it hard to paint in any other medium. Most of my earlier works were either self portraits (because you never have to pay yourself to pose!) or figuratively based. In the past year I've been exploring abstract artmaking and find it a challenging and refreshing way to work after creating so much realistic artwork in the past.

In the last 4 years I've begun to make commissioned works for friends and family. If you're interested in having a portrait made of loved ones, please feel to contact me with your specific request.

Statement about the Artwork

People, we see them everyday and yet how often do we go any deeper than what we are seeing?

It is the naturalness of man that captivates me; the moments that exist where we shed our self consciousness. It can be held in a persons gaze, a pose, the lines on their face, how they dress and lastly in how they disguise themselves.

It is through our flaws that we become human; in my paintings and drawings I search for the cracks and flaws in our characters. Those moments when we forget to pose and disguise.

At one point in my career I worked mostly from self portaits as a way of exploring how we present ourselves and the different stages of moods we go through.

My current body of work including the abstracts is about the psyhological and sociological aspects of dealing with fears and doubts, states of the unconscious mind, and about negative issues humans create in our natural environmental.

It is the humanity of man I seek to explore rather than the idealization of him.

Artist Contact Information:

Email: marzedotz33@yahoo.com

Studio: (360) 223-1107