Marlene Bauer
Portland painter Marlene Bauer continues to explore a symbolic vocabulary of abstract images and color. This series, entitled Premonitions, is compositionally narrative, connecting personal memories to time and place. She interprets various memories of sites and sounds into visual poetry. Unlike her earlier urban-scapes, these recollections are of interiors and still life. Bauer’s sensory awareness is heightened by synethesia; an innate ability to connect particular colors with particular sounds. Consequently, as the artist develops her compositions the subtlety of color is continually refined. The result is a wonderful blending of superb color with a more delicate and playful line.
A Northwest native, Marlene Bauer received her BFA in 1976 from the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Since that time she has exhibited her work throughout the Northwest while teaching art at Marylhurst College. From 2002-05, she taught art at Clackamas Community College and became responsible for developing their Alexander Gallery. Her work is in private and public collections along the West coast including the Portland Art Museum, OHSU, Safeco Corp., and Seattle Arts Commission. In 2004, she completed a columnar commission in mosaic, Munnich for the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.