Interview conducted by Adrienne Jones for Project M Zine – September 2004
Your artwork is extremely diverse, and it’s clear you’ve put in some years branching in many different directions, from your paintings, to magazine illustrations, even body and tattoo art. How did you begin your career as an artist, and what was your first professional job?
Not including the $25 I received from my sixth grade teacher for copying Emily Dickenson’s portrait our of an English book, my first professional job began in the limo that took me to my father’s headstone unveiling. My dad’s best friend’s wife was making conversation to distract me from the upcoming festivities: “So, I hear you’re an artist. When you’re ready, give me a call. I have lots of friends in the NYC publishing industry."
Smelling opportunity in the midst of tragedy, I took her number, and in short order, had made an appointment with Inc. magazine. I showed up, bright-tailed and bushy-eyed, my over-sized portfolio bursting with original work, and was shown into a small room, handed a stack of Black Books and other illustration compilations and told, “Flip through those. That’s the kind of work we’re looking for." Then I was left alone. No one came back.
I was so angry and insulted that I left the office. I needed to piss desperately, but I would be damned if I was going back there, even if they were the only people I knew in New York. So, I wandered the floor, eventually coming across a little old man in a small dark room who called out “Hey, sweetheart! You looking for the bathroom? We always see women wandering lost back here!"
When I returned his keys, I realized there were Warner Brother’s animation cels spread all over his desk. It turned out that he shot cels to turn then into movies. I asked to show him my portfolio, he called a producer friend, saying I was “not untalented", and soon enough I had landed a job with a small animation studio as an assistant producer.
Your images, particularly your gallery pieces, seem to scream out ‘freedom’. Have you ever done work for hire where you minded the structure? Or did you always find a way to express yourself personally, regardless of the venue?
Structural work-for-hire. Oh, yes. The next gig I had was illustrating comic books for Valiant and ElfQuest. It doesn’t get much more structural than filling in all those little boxes. Still, even in the midst of exploding robots and mountainous mammaries, I always found time to keep sketchbooks and continue my own work. It’s all a matter of compartmentalization – what do I need to do to pay the bills so I keep doing the thing that keeps me alive?
With the intense use of light and dramatic shadows, your images come alive, jump off the page, yet it appears hand rendered as opposed to digital. What are your mediums of choice?
I’ve been working in watercolor and gouache for years, but have recently switched to oils since moving to New Orleans – I have the space and air here to work large, and not suffocate from the fumes! And all my work is fully hand drawn and painted – no digital shortcuts or photo-layering.
Looking at pieces like ‘Change Chase’, and ‘ "When the Crotch Rules the Mind in the Quoilyn Garden of Lust", Narrated’, there are so many levels of feeling, so much going on there. While your creatures are surreal, even what some might term ‘dark’, there is a festival quality to it all. It makes me want to jump in and play, despite their obvious mischief. Is this duality intentional on your part?
Walking the edge of the unknown makes us the most aware of our selves, makes us feel the most alive. When I’m in that space, laughter and light rise up in me, along with a heavy dose of free-flowing playfulness. It can’t help but translate to my work. Quoilyns, one of which is “narrating" in the piece you mentioned, are a visual embodiment of greed, avarice and lust – and delighting in it!
How do you go about starting a new piece? Is the scene set in your mind ahead of time, or do things happen while you’re working that sometimes take it somewhere you hadn’t expected?
A new piece can come from anywhere: an epiphany, an unusual experience, a line from a book, the “flashes" I often get as I’m dropping off to sleep surfing theta waves. Then come the sketches, sometimes the same image over and over, followed by reference, which can be both verbal and visual. Then, I decide what medium the piece wants to be, I draw the underpinnings, and flesh it out with color. I usually see the piece completed in my head before I ever start it, which can be quite a detriment: “Why the hell do I need to paint this??? I can already see it finished!" I often LOATHE painting. Right now, I’m trying to loosen up, let me surprise myself a bit.
At the risk of focusing on a theme in your work, I see a combination of confinement and control in much of it. For instance, the Carousel pieces, though depicting women in various states of contortion, impaled on sticks like Carousel horses, their expressions are serene, accepting. And in ‘Master Waiting’, while it portrays a woman ready for voluntary sex play, she is nude and bound by the wrists. Though she looks anything but vulnerable. She is in control. Is there any connecting thread, a philosophy behind this type of material, or is each piece of an individual mindset?
If I have any overarching philosophy in my work, it’s that of rampant individualism, of delight in experience and the self. The piece you mentioned, “Masterwaiting" is actually a psychological study of the duality of bondage. The panels behind her represent her body, the circles are her mind. Reading from right to left, when she is first restrained, her mind is a blank, all she has an awareness of is her body, the feel of the floor under her, the discomforting position. But, as she waits for him to come home, she physically relaxes into her bondage and her mind leaps forward in anticipation of his return, shown by the circles, which shade from a pale, blank pink to a deep sanguine red, sparking with gold.
You offer back stories for many of your pieces, everything from recurring childhood dreams, to a reluctant foray with a costumed sadist called ‘Ouchy the Clown’ (which is one of the most amusing characters I’ve ever heard of in real life). How much of your work is spawned by personal experience?
I think that all artists’ work is spawned by personal experiences. Anything that you hear about, taste, see, feel, becomes synthesized by the hands through which the piece is birthed into the world.
What is it like being an artist in New Orleans right now, and what is a typical day for Marrus?
Being an artist right now is very sweaty. This is my first summer down here, and things slow waaaay down. When I’ve tried to keep up my New York pace, I’m told, “Girl, the summer’s gonna slap the Yankee right out you." We don’t see as many tourists during hurricane season, so I have time to work on commissions and personal work, as opposed to running all over the country doing shows. A typical day doesn’t exist. I may be on the road doing promotions or selling my work. If I’m home, I’m online, referencing, sketching or working on my next piece, discussing commissions with clients, riding my bike back and forth into the French Quarter to replenish stock at the gallery, or scheduling my next show.
Which projects take up most of your time right now, and what are your plans for the near future?
Right now, I’m working more in oils, and I’ve found that I prefer to paint on a gessoed birch frame than canvas. Also, I’m doing storyboards for a film that starts shooting later this fall, and I’ve got some illustration work lined up for a role playing game. I love to work on a variety of projects for many different industries – it keeps me sharp and entertained, and the cross-pollination of media allows me to play with a lot of different people!
Do you think people understand your perspective, or the ideas expressed in your art? And on that note, does it matter?
I don’t believe that anyone can truly understand what goes though an artist’s head, any more than we can really understand what goes through ANYBODY’S head. I’ve had a few people say some very derisive things to me regarding my work – usually implying that I’m insane or taking drugs to come up with my imagery. Then, thankfully, there are the rest, for whom my work seems to give visual metaphors in their own lives. I’ve been told some amazing stories by complete strangers who look at me with delighted, glowing eyes. Either way, no, it ultimately doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of my art. The images I put out into the world are as integral to me as the way I speak, the way I breathe, what I dream. While it’s always easier when my peers support what I do, I am myself, my work, my soul, regardless of anyone’s opinion.
Anything you’d like to say to those who love your art? Anything you want to add?
