During the month of April I am offering a collection of my encaustic paintings at one half-price (50% off). Prices listed are prior to discount. I have chosen many pieces inspired by springtimes past and present. I continue to donate a significant portion of every sale to a democratic candidate or a voting rights initiative. Your purchase goes a long way!

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During my graduate work at Massachusetts College of Art I researched comparative religions, including Shamanism. My thesis work involved mapping my psyche, and giving form to my discoveries through art. I became intimately familiar with the Shamanic concepts of an Underworld, Transformation, and an Upperworld. The Shaman is able via trance to traverse the realms with the intent to heal an individual, a group, or a society that has lost its way, lost its soul.

This body of work is about the earth plane, and the sacredness of the earth plane, of our Earth. It clearly makes use of “earthy” materials. As in much of my art work from the 1980’s and 90’s, The Presence of Spirit also makes use of imagery and materials connected with the lower and upper realms.

The Presence of Spirit includes thirty-five mixed media paintings on wood panels, each 24” x 48”, completed between 1992 and 1994, plus a few large acrylic and mixed media paintings on canvas.

The Jewish families that came from Eastern Europe and settled in the six-family apartment complexes of the Delmar "loop" of St. Louis in the 1940's are the basis of these paintings that are alternatively called "Scenes from Childhood" or "Honoring the Ancestors." These intimate and magical works refer to family members, apartments, streets, alleys, and backyards of childhood, and mix them with other "spiritual" relatives and divine emanation. This is childhood re-visioned by the loving gaze of successful adulthood.

These paintings often begin with the transfer of personal and/or meaningful photographic images onto chiffon fabric, which is then adhered to the canvas, along with other fabric elements. Sometimes the original photo images can still be seen through the acrylic paint, and sometimes they are entirely transformed or obscured. Color and space are playful and imaginative in these works, as if the inhabitants of the paintings exist not just in this world, but also in some wondrous heavenly world that we see only through visions, dreams, and art.

Medium: acrylic and mixed media on canvas
Size range: 8”x10”-12”x16”
Year completed: 1997-1998

Marilyn Banner

Abstractions of my human skin and the "skin" of trees, aka bark.

Encaustic paintings ~6x6 and under

Several years ago, while visiting Prague, I spent several days in the old Jewish cemetery, photographing the crowded and worn gravestones. The entire place felt magical, as if the spirits were hovering over it. At that time, I also visited Terezin, the “model” concentration camp that housed many visual artists, writers, musicians, and other Jews in the arts, as well as gay and disabled people. I was deeply affected by seeing the empty cells, the examining rooms, and the ovens that cremated the bodies of those who died there. I had a strong sense of emptiness. The spirits had departed long ago, and only darkness remained. I photographed the ovens, the grave markers, and the gates to the even more frightening “little fortress” enclave. I found I needed to integrate this experience and work through it in my art.

For years my work had been based on the following questions: who am I, as a human being, as a female, as a spiritual being, as a Jew, and as a member of the human race? My experience in Terezin brought a new question: how could this (genocide) have happened? My research turned up detailed documentation of centuries of persecution. I was compelled to begin a series of works, shown here, that would give voice to the difficult history and identity I was acknowledging as a descendant of Eastern European Jews. I dyed heavy cloth yellow, and gathered together my own family photos, photos of pre-war European Jews, photos of Terezin, photos of Prague, meat markets, and texts. I transferred these images and text to the cloth. I drew into the work with ink, adding to and reinforcing the images and text.

The imagery in this work shows cruelty, pain, accomplishment and joy, all part of a story that goes back over a thousand years. The title “Still With Us” refers both to the prevalence of discrimination, persecution, and racism throughout history, as well as to the remarkable strength and survival of the people and their descendants despite oppression.

Though at first glance this work may seem specific to one group, on a more universal level it is about acknowledging and owning one’s own history in order to better find a place in society. It is about acceptance and understanding. The work raises the following important questions: how does knowing my past history affect me today? How does knowing my own history affect how I view myself and others? Do others view me as part of a group and view themselves as part of a group? Does that influence our interactions? These are universal questions.