Nature and the many facets of its definition, is integral to the art of Marney Fuller. She’s a painter and sculptor. Much of her art references the fleeting environment. Growing up, farmland and the surrounding woods, were bulldozed for tract housing. Creeks were paved and the local wildlife was gone. The temporality and fragility of ecosystems has influenced her art and how nature is perceived. Marney lives in Brooklyn. She received her MFA from Pratt Institute. Her studio is in DUMBO. In 2023, four large metal assemblage sculptures (each approx. 10×10 ft) were permanently installed on the outside wall of the school building, PS 107, near Prospect Park. The installation is titled, Ecosystem [Rebirth]; a Bumblebee, Spider, Caterpillar and Butterfly. Dragonfly, (approx 10×12 ft), another large assemblage sculpture, permanently hangs from the 1st floor ceiling of the Morris Campus High School in the Bronx. Dandelions, (approx 10×5 ft), was temporarily installed next to the Manhattan Bridge and at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Marney is also an art educator. In 2007, she started an art school called, Art Workshop Experience (AWE) from her studio. In 2021, she received a National Gold Medal Art Educator Award from Scholastic Art & Writing Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. She’s been a teaching artist and artist-in-residence at under-served schools in NYC in the past years. Through various grants, she produced several public art installations with NYC students.
My art heralds the pollinators and givers of life with the undercurrent of fleeting and diminishing habitats. I celebrate the familiar; that which surrounds us everyday. Our plants and creatures are our bellwethers. My iconography is of changing boundaries and the impermanence of the environment. Movement, light and time are characteristic of all of my art. My paintings are emotive landscapes about our relationship with nature. The surfaces are layered. Strokes, drips, sprays and plops build the body. Colors next to one another optically describe light and depth that transform gestured marks into representation, becoming timelines of process and progression. My sculptures are emblems of nature’s small giants. Most of my sculptures are made from an assemblage of noble metals; rods, tubing, sheets and wire. I weave, build, and sew metals together. Like large physical drawings, the metals twist and scribble to create form. My wall installations are reminiscent of huge brooches of jewelry. My labor of love is to elevate an awareness. With climate change affecting us everyday, we need to serve as guardians to care and preserve our local habitats and their inhabitants.
Managing Nature
Nature serves me. I want just enough trees to feel rural but, not to ruin my view. I want roses crawling up my trellis, not the wild vines rooted near my fence. My yard is filled with flowers and shrubs that tell me the seasons. It’s a prepared canvas to show off my love of the land. The racoon wants in. The black bear searches for food in my trash. The deer roam freely and eat the plants I nurtured and coddled. The tract houses replaced the farm. The farm replaced the woods. The frogs no longer croak. The creek no longer exists. My relationship with nature is from the window. What is nature and how do I define it? Encroachment from me.
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