Marie Sturken

Contact the artist:
47 Cameron Court, Princeton, NJ 08540
609.279.1545
mariesturken.artspan.com
sturkenart@aol.com

Marie Sturken is a printmaker and papermaker who has exhibited extensively in solo, group, and juried shows. Her works are included in many public and corporate collections, including:

Museum of Modern Art Library, New York, NY
Newark Library Print Collection, Newark, NJ
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
Bristol-Myers Squibb, Lawrenceville, NJ
Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY
Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ

A founding member of the Princeton Artists Alliance, she has exhibited recently in the PAA "Homer's Odyssey" shows at the Newark Museum, 2002, and at the College of New Jersey, 2003, and at Franklin & Marshall College, 2004. Recent awards include these purchase prizes:
William Paterson University- "American Impressions", Juried Printmaking Exhibit, 2004;
Hunterdon Museum of Art- Juried National Print Exhibit, 2003;
The College of New Jersey- National Juried Print Exhibit, 2002

Marie Sturken's handmade paper works are created at Dieu Donne Papermill, in New York City. She has taught papermaking workshops for the Newark Museum, the Printmaking Council of New Jersey, Perkins Center for the Arts, and the Princeton University Art Museum.

Artist Statement:
Paper as a source material has played a fundamental role in my work in recent years. The organic nature of this ancient craft makes it a very attractive medium to those of us who work with solvents and chemicals in the field of printmaking. Because of its liquid qualities, I use paper pulp as a medium, like oil or watercolor, to carry the color of my palette. In a unique way, it is a combination of papermaking and painting.

Artists today no longer define paper as a sheet on which one places an image, but instead, use paper as a flexible, pliable medium in which the image is part of the paper itself. Many images in my work are recycled, and have evolved over time, documenting its fugitive nature. Tearing things, distressing them, and sending them through a series of processes, gives them new life and new meaning. With the transformation of the raw fibers through beating, and the layering of various materials; the image, content or subject can be an expression of the material itself.

Recent works in handmade paper and in monotype reflect an interest in clothing design, and in the use of fabric and language. The works in both mediums include embedded stitched papers and fabric, along with transferred and printed words, and images of materials used in sewing. The handmade papers, created at Dieu Donne Papermill in New York City, using flax pulp as a base, are pressed in a hydraulic press, and the monotypes are printed on an etching press- often with many overprintings. In both methods, there is much experimentation, and great excitement and surprise at the final result.