About Marni Rothman

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Marni Rothman is a multi-media artist based in Northern California whose work explores the emotional and spiritual connections between humans, nature, and the environment. Working across drawing, digital media, and collage, she creates vibrant, semi-abstracted imagery rooted in nature iconography, expressive color, and bold, gestural forms.

Much of Rothman's inspiration comes from her own garden, botanical gardens, and her travels — places where she finds a deep sense of connection to the cycles, shapes, and atmosphere of the natural world. Her digital works begin with photography and evolve through a layered, hands-on editing process, transforming light, form, and color into compositions that evoke memory, mood, and movement. In addition to digital prints, she creates intuitive paper collages and richly textured drawings using colored pencil, gouache, oil pastel, and marker.

Rothman has worked in the art field since 1990, with a background in offset printing, classic printmaking methods, and graphic design. She holds a B.A. in Studio Art from Smith College and has over a decade of experience in commercial design and art direction. Her work reflects a lifelong passion for visual storytelling and is influenced by artistic traditions including Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Abstract Expressionism.

She has exhibited her work in Massachusetts, New York City, and San Francisco.

Much of her work is available to be printed in high-quality pigment inks on various materials that fit your home and decor. Marni is available for consultations on pieces, sizing, etc. Her vast background in design, as well as passion for collaborating with clients on their ideal artwork, make consultations ideal.

My work is rooted in a deep emotional and sensory connection to the world around me — to nature, light, form, and the beauty of everyday moments. I create across mediums, working with traditional materials, digital tools, and collage — each offering a different way to engage with intuition, memory, and presence. Whether on paper, through the lens, or in layers of cut imagery, my process is guided by feeling, rhythm, and a search for resonance.

I love color and bold strokes. I love nature, and I nurture my relationship to land and sky by creating art from the shapes, growth, and cycles of the natural world. Through my artistic practice, I reconnect with myself, my fellow humans, the earth, and the cosmos. This connection — intimate, emotional, and spiritual — is at the core of all I make.

My drawings are abstractions that emerge from a spontaneous, emotionally guided process. Using materials like colored pencil, gouache, oil pastel, and marker, I create compositions that reflect what I felt in the moment and what surfaced through the act of making — vibrant with life, energy, and movement. My gestures range from bold to gentle, evoking the complexity of internal states and the richness of lived experience. These works are an invitation to connect through color, rhythm, and emotion.

In my digital work, I begin with photographs — often of flora, occasionally architecture or landscape — and transform them through layered experimentation in multiple software programs. About 70 percent of my imagery is inspired by the organic energy of plant life, with the rest shaped by built forms and the atmosphere of space. I strive to evoke the warmth of light coming through windows at dusk, the blocky silhouette of architecture against the night sky, and the quiet mystery of distance, air, and light.

Though my tools are digital, the process is deeply manual and personal. I make myriad decisions in each piece, drawing on decades of artistic experience and visual intuition. My work is influenced by Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Abstract Expressionism — traditions that inform my attention to light, form, and emotional depth.

My collage practice is a tactile, contemplative process — a modern form of shrine-building shaped by instinct and gesture. I select, shift, and layer images in a flow of intuitive response, attuned to the energy that emerges through composition and contrast. These works serve as visual meditations, offering a space for quiet resonance and symbolic presence.

Across all media, my visual language is bold, colorful, and full of movement. There's an underlying sense of playfulness and a deep love for living in this world — a desire to celebrate our shared experience and the spirit of what it means to feel fully alive. I hope my work resonates with viewers, whether it reflects something familiar or sparks something entirely their own.

Marni Rothman

Berkeley, CA

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