Born and raised in Texas, Marnelle had an inner sense of artistic expression from an early age. As a young child, she could often be found in her room surrounded by various art media, creating vivid works of imagination. At the age of 11, Marnelle entered the San Antonio River Walk Art Show and sold over a dozen pieces of her work, selling out of everything she brought. At the age of 13, her mother submitted a painting to the Art League of Houston, not realizing that the show was restricted to adults. She ended up being a full-fledged League member until her young age came to the attention of the League.
Strongly encouraged and influenced by her mother, an accomplished artist and natural teacher, she made art the focus of her life. She studied art at the University of Texas at Austin earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and specializing in life drawing. Marnelle continued her education at the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX and the Art League of Houston. Along the way, she has studied under several notable Texas artists, including Polly Hammett, Nina Beall and Arthur Turner.
Marnelle has maintained a love of figure drawing over the years and keeps the figure a prominent subject in much of her work. She finds drawing and painting the figure to be one of the most challenging subjects for artists that nature provides. Her diligence to anatomical correctness gives her abstract figures a fluidity and motion unique to her style.
Having lived many years in both Texas and Arizona, Marnelle travels frequently between the two. She has been influenced by both the rolling hills of the Texas Hill Country and the rugged, arid landscape of the low desert of Arizona. She lives and works in Phoenix, AZ along with her husband, her two children and two dogs.
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