2020 Senior Exhibition Artists 2020 Senior Exhibition Artists: Natalie Marshall

Biography

Natalie Marshall is a Senior Sculpture Major at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Their work centers around identity- and the process of how people grow and change into new versions of themselves. The main themes of their work revolve around anxiety, obsessive compulsiveness, sexuality, and gender. These are all things that have continuously transformed throughout their life and affected the core meaning of their art. Natalie is interested in creating work that actively challenges their obsessive-compulsive tendencies to make their art perfect, and their work ranges from sculptures and paintings to illustration.

Statement

My work serves as an outlet for me to explore. It is a way for me to go “out of bounds”, or “color outside the lines” after denying myself the ability to do so for so long. I’ve often found myself attracted to the spherical form, and how it can be both geometric and organic. My current goal is to move away from the geometric, and man-made, into the organic and abstract. This inspiration to free my creative process comes as a natural part of my growth as a person. My art is directly influenced by my obsessive-compulsive tendencies which control all aspects of my life, art included. Instead of exerting fruitless energy on making things clean, crisp, and my pipe dream version of “perfect” I have begun to forgive myself for making mistakes. This forgiveness lets me be looser with my hand and inspire abstraction. Taking from the spherical form which is both perfect and imperfect, I want to express the relationship I feel with art when allowed outside the boundaries of what I would previously constrain them in. My introduction to abstract art, and major inspiration, is Cy Twombly. The papier-mâché orb forms are primarily inspired by Chris Gustin’s ceramic cloud series. Minor influences are various figurative pieces by Jean Arp, and spherical forms from nature (clouds, planets, bulbs, etc.).

Contact

Email: nmarshall2@umassd.edu

Slideshow

1. Ego, 2020, mixed media, 6' x 4' x 2”
2. Ego, 2020, mixed media, 6' x 4' x 2”
3. Double Venus, 2019, steel, 6' x 2' x 1”
4. Growth, 2019, wire, mixed media, 5' x 2' x 1’
5. Growth, 2019, papier-mâché, 2' x 5' x 1’
6. Growth, 2020, papier-mâché, 2' x 7' x 2’
7. Wing, 2020, carboard, wire, mixed media, 5’ x 3’ x 4” 
8. Wing, 2020, carboard, wire, mixed media, 5’ x 3’ x 4” 
9. Wing, 2020, carboard, wire, mixed media, 5’ x 3’ x 4”