Featured Member Artist: Marcelle Harwell Pachnowski

Marcelle Harwell Pachnowski holds her MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Maryland and her BA in painting and drawing from the American University in Washington, DC. She has exhibited on national and international levels and her work is in numerous collections which include the Malt Beach Art Center in Tampere, Finland, the College of Charleston, the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center in Brooklyn, NY, University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television Department and many private collections. She has taught at the University of Maryland, Western Carolina University, Columbus College, Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Gibbes Museum School in Charleston, SC to name a few.

When Marcelle lived in the mountains of North Carolina she negotiated with county and state officials to start an arts council. She successfully organized many fundraisers, art festivals and regularly brought artists-in-residence to their public schools. When she lived in Atlanta, Georgia she was an artist-in-residence on the city, county and state levels that were funded by local arts councils, the Georgia Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

While living in Atlanta, Marcelle was the first visual artist to be involved in an artist-in-residence in a homeless shelter for women and children. She also lobbied for art advocacy in Atlanta. She left the Atlanta area and lived in rural Appalachia continuing as a working painter and also taught art education, art history and studio classes at Cumberland Community College in Middlesboro, KY. Following living in east Tennessee, Marcelle moved to Brooklyn, NY and became active in the American Society of Contemporary Artists, the Salmagundi Club and the National Association of Women Artists. Marcelle served as President, vice President, and Governing Board member of the National Association of Women Artists. Marcelle then moved to Marlton, New Jersey and continued to actively exhibit her artwork in and around New York City in addition to the Philadelphia area and with the Tri-State Artists Equity.

Marcelle, a working artist, has lived the past four years in the Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. She is remains active in the Women’s Caucus for Art and in particular the DC and Philadelphia chapters. Marcelle often paints locally in “live” music jam session.

“Painting is my passion. The act of painting--the movement, the gesture, the process of selecting brushes, palette knives, paints and colors, textured mediums, the music underlying and reinforcing the process— is an exuberant ritual. All five senses are part of this painting / ritual process that has been the essence of my adult artistic life.
My concern for not “being” identified from a specific region of the country or identified with a specified style of painting has at times been isolating, but it is central to my creative process, and to my quest for recognition, validation and acceptance. My place as a woman artist - wife, mother, and grandmother - raised and educated in a male-dominated society is also at the heart of my process. Heartache, grief, loss, pain, joy, love, bliss, lust, excitement… look at my paintings as a mirror of my life. This is who I am, a colorist in a digital age.”

http://www.marcelleharwellpachnowski.com/