Marianne Phillips was born in the Netherlands, and has lived in Canada since she was 6 years old.
She was educated at The University of British Columbia in Psychology and Fine Arts. Always curious, she also has taken numerous courses in Pottery, Weaving, Textiles, Jewellery, Felting, and Papermaking. Travelling abroad has fed her creative spirit. The memories and experiences from these travels have continued to inform her work.
She was lucky enough to work as an expressive arts facilitator in health care settings for 35 years. It was a career that both delighted and inspired her because it allowed her to do the two things she loved, working with people and using creativity and imagination as agents to improve the quality of life and wellbeing for people in care.
Marianne has been creative as long as she can remember. She has a passion for textures, layers and incorporating found objects into her work. She is forever picking up bits of rusty metal, beach glass, thrift items or other discarded treasures that need recusing to give them a new purpose. Lately she's returned to one of her first interests, working with textiles, fibre, nature dyeing, eco-printing and stitching.
With the ever increasing changing of the climate and the health of the earth in critical crisis she has also become interested in raising awareness by making public art statements to leave positive messages that speak to the importance of caring for our fragile planet.
Marianne is retired and lives in New Westminster B.C with her husband Andrew in a small house with a garden. She recognises and acknowledges the Qayqayt First Nation, as well as all Coast Salish peoples, on whose Traditional and Unceded Territories she has the privilege to live on.
"My art making is intuitive, spontaneous and sometimes experimental. Often visions for a project come to me in the form of dreams. I like to incorporate a variety of techniques in my work such as drawing, painting, printmaking, fibre or photography. I'm very drawn to stitching, textiles, and working with plant materials. Lately I've been exploring my own cultural roots to include historic and ancestral themes in my work.
There is a wonderful almost magical alchemy that happens in the creative process. I am never able to work on just one project at a time. Often while working on a project other ideas bubble up that I feel compelled to explore. One thing mysteriously leads me down the path to another. Art has magic in it."
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