Key West Art & Historical Society to feature artist Roberta Marks in next Distinguished Speaker Series

 

On Thursday, March 26, Key West Art & Historical Society hosts prominent artist Roberta Marks in their Distinguished Speaker Series at the Custom House Museum, 281 Front Street, from 6-7:30 pm on their third floor Research & Learning Center.

 

Marks will offer a presentation with photography followed by a question and answer component; the talk will reveal her three-month journey to India in 1991, where her art focuses on found imagery instead of the found objects Marks’ work is also well known for.  Marks will also share how her travels influence her work and talk about “being a Buddhist, an artist and a teacher and the interrelationship between the three,” she says.

 

Marks, whose work has won many awards and is widely collected and featured at numerous museums and galleries throughout the country, creates mixed media pieces via photographs, paintings, collages and constructions that investigate the mystery of being.

 

“Everything filters through my senses and through the lens of the camera,” she says. “Ultimately, when I’m in my studio the same thing repeats itself.  I feel like I’m a shaman, directed from the inside to the outside.”

 

Though as prolific as artists who reside in major cities, Marks lives in both Key West and in the countryside of France, where she prefers the influence of solitude and silence.

 

“I chose my lifestyle over my professional life,” she the artist, who has lived in Key West since January of 1981.  “There is no where else in the United States that I would live but Key West.”

 

But living in Key West does not influence her art in ways that might typically influence artists.

 

“My art comes from the inside out,” explains Marks. “I live on the ocean and all I see is the ocean and the sky. It’s like I’m living in one of my constructions,” she says.

 

Marks will also be featured next year at the Custom House in a cohesive mini retrospective exhibition of nearly thirty years of her mixed media work.

 

“People should do what they should feel they should do rather than what they are told they should do,” she offers.  “I took my own path & wherever it lead me.  Anything is possible; there are so many options.  Choose something that will fulfill you.”

 

This annual lecture series is made possible in part by the generosity of the Chengzhong Culture and Education Focus Foundation.  For more information, contact Geri Sedoti, Program Director at 295.6616 x 106 or visit WWW.KWAHS.ORG.  Your Museums.  Your Community.  It Takes an Island. 

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