God's vision for Marni's life was to be an artist. The struggle of her awakening became her story. Marni was born in post-war Germany into a family too shell-shocked to function, let alone care about Art and Beauty.
At a very young age art was her escape from her brother's molestation. She painted exotic birds that could fly into magical heavens. Her parents did not know or understand. They were ill-equipped to be the guides she needed. Slowly she learned that she felt good when she was making art. She painted the walls of her room with roads that led far, far away. Her parents were furious that she had 'ruined ' the walls.
Perhaps in trying to understand people she became fascinated with the human face - how infinite combinations of shapes seemed to frame the essence of a person. Her parents categorically refused her a formal art education. Instead, her father wanted to know when she would finally focus on something useful and sent her off with a man who raped her at the age of twelve.
Beautiful enough to become a professional model she attracted the attention of a man who promised to take her away and keep here safe but who became so obsessed with controlling her that he intentionally addicted her to Heroin. She eventually escaped but I had become a junkie relegated to a world of drugs, prostitution and crime. When she was imprisoned, art came to her rescue. Portraiture for the guards and even murals commissioned by the prison administration earned her necessities and special privileges. Upon her release Marni did not heed art's gentle prodding, instead she turned her back and took a job in marketing.
She was driven, eventually opening her own direct mail advertising firm which grew to over seventy employees. For twenty years it looked like she was home free. She had the big house on the hill and the shiny new sports car in the garage. Then she became ill and almost died.
Too sick to move she finally remembered her art. Gingerly she found her way back into portraiture, lovingly exploring the beauty of the human face. As she slowly recovered and gained her strength her portraits became bigger, larger than life. When she grew bored with paper she began rendering her subjects on plaster made to look like stone.
Music Director Carl St.Clair of Orange County's Pacific Symphony and the Komische Oper Berlin was the first to commission three of her Legacy Portraits, as they came to be known. Former South African Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Nguka's portrait hangs in her living room. A portrait of Oprah Winfrey was donated to her Academy for Girls in Johannesburg and a triptych of portraits of South African freedom fighter Walter Sisulu auctioned off for over $23,000.00 and fulfilled Marni's life-long dream of meeting Nelson Mandela.
Now solely focused on art she began to evolve as an artist. She came to believe that art is a gift from God expressing itself through the artist. She wanted to 'get out of the way' and let art happen. She began to feel constricted by portraiture but remained fascinated with the possibilities of plaster.
She discovered and perfected a technique of 'Painting With Plaster' and evolved towards contemporary abstract art. In her first series entitled 'Joy Babies' she allowed textures and colors to express themselves in a light-hearted, decorative manner.
Her current series, entitled Uquobo is the culmination of her artistic development thus far. Uquobo is the Zulu word for 'essence'. Uquobo pieces lend their unmistakable presence to a space and speak to the essence of the viewer.
Each piece is simply entitled Uquobo and only identified by its color palette so as to not imply a meaning to enable each viewer to establish his own dialog that speaks to the soul.
The process of Uquobo begins when Marni personally builds the large, four by four foot frame in order to establish a creative relationship with the piece from its inception. Earlier frames were built from simple pine but as the series evolved Uquobo's language became sophisticated, built from noble hardwoods such a red oak or poplar to imbue the pieces with depth and quality.
In creating Uquobo Marni enters a place of absolute 'no-mind', a meditative state in which she becomes a conduit for the textures and colors to express themselves without her interference. She does not analyze nor interpret the impulses. Still the work is often deeply personal to her. For Uquobo 'rust' she was led to use a piece of her actual wedding veil and Uquobo 'aqua II' even contains pieces of her wedding dress.
God's vision for Marni's life was to be an artist. She knows that now. "The peace I feel when I am in the creative process is beyond understanding."