MARILYNNE MORSHEAD graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Communications, Video and Film, with minors in Photography, Philosophy and Psychology. Concurrently, she studied and received certification from the Mass Media Institute at Stanford University, where she concentrated on Photography and New Media.
While attending college, she participated in and assisted with a number of workshops including the Ansel Adams Summer Workshops in Yosemite, where her early photographic mentors included Ted Orland, David Bayles, Jerry Uelsmann and Martha Casanave. Visual poet Keith Carter also provided essential guidance. Painter, printmaker and sculptor Nathan Oliveira, and the wealth of artists within the Abstract Expressionist movement, especially the dynamic and dramatic black and white paintings of Franz Kline, coupled with the philosophy of architect Christopher Alexander have also exerted a powerful impact upon her artistic voice.
Our lives are governed by a certain number of patterns, which we perform with great regularity and repetition. These patterns have a huge influence on our capacity to live, and live well, provided they are positive patterns. Just as simple patterns can help us live richly, great art affects people on a visceral level. Creating images and installations that speak in new, yet comforting ways is what drives Ms. Morshead’s artistic process. Her strength is connecting with people and patterns, creating a visual symphony. Her work’s strong graphic quality, a harmonious blend of nature and nurture, creates an experiential mindscape, perfect for transformative spaces of inquiry and meditation.
Her deep passion for using art to facilitate healing leads Ms. Morshead to create galleries within commercial medical buildings, including Gallery 321 near Stanford University where she is the anchor artist exhibiting seven different portfolios of work, and actively curates other artists’ work as well. Her work in this environment prompts people to dream and to question how the world around them has a positive or negative impact upon their lives, and how art can help people, places and communities heal.
Ms. Morshead’s passion for green and sustainable living, coupled with her ability to transform every day objects into an elegant pattern language and her skill at capturing dramatic portraits won her an opportunity to style and shoot the Heavy Metals Play Forever multi-channel campaign for RecycleWorks.
Her experience as a medical hypnotherapist and movement educator, and dedication to using art for healing has led Ms. Morshead to create hybrid workshops and retreats that use guided imagery, photography and collage, and she has led process and pattern workshops nationally and internationally, in the United States, Latin America and Europe.
Projects often start out as personal bodies of work and are then pulled into the public domain. These include The Way We Move, Heart and Empathy, which segued into editorial, promotional, and publication respectively. Her works can be found in collections worldwide, including Europe, South America and Australia. Locally, her work can be found at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts Artists Gallery.