About Marie
In discovering kelp's vital significance and alarming decline in 2021, Marie McKenzie shifted her focus from imaginative seascapes to underwater visions, ultimately leading her to confront her fears of the ocean through freediving. This transformative, healing journey inspired her recent paintings and clarified her mission to share these "sequoias of the sea" with the world before they disappear. By illuminating the beauty of kelp forests, she strives to foster connection and contribute to their restoration through her partnership with SeaTrees—a nonprofit organization in Southern California that works with coastal communities to reforest the ocean.
Marie McKenzie lives and works in Ojai, CA. She studied painting at the University of Kansas and has been painting for nearly three decades. Her most recent solo exhibition was in Los Angeles in 2021, with previous solo shows in 2017, 2014, and 2013. Her work has been included in multiple group shows, including at Sullivan Goss Gallery in Santa Barbara, as well as in museums such as the Ojai Valley Museum, Crocker Art Museum, Santa Paula Art Museum, and the Channel Islands Maritime Museum. McKenzie was recently awarded an arts grant from the Ventura County Arts Council. Her blend of abstract and realistic oil painting combines classical techniques with the unseen subject matter of our kelp forests.
In 2021, while researching keystone species for an upcoming solo show in LA, I was devastated to learn that 90% of Northern California's kelp forests had vanished. This revelation inspired me to create artwork focused on kelp.
Why Kelp?
If you had told me ten years ago that I would be creating sculptures and oil paintings inspired by kelp, I would have asked, “What is kelp?”
It's beautiful how our curiosities take us to places we never would have imagined.
Coming from the Midwest, the sparks of oil painting have been flying since I was first introduced at the age of 11. Then, there was a moment in my undergrad when creative wonder was again ignited. I remember walking into the foundry of the sculpture department and discovering a wild apparatus. I found a propane tank hooked up to a camp stove boiling a pot of water, with a hose connected to a PVC pipe on sawhorses, billowing steam. This was my first experience with steam bending wood, and I fell in love right away. I first coiled wood slats around tubes, then began creating undulating ribbons, which made way for Kansas tallgrass-inspired sculptures.
Steam offers aromatherapy, warmth, prana, and gives new life to wooden remnants. Feeling the fibers moving underneath my hands contains a sensitivity, as the wood surrenders its flexibility. Sometimes it takes many tries, unsuccessfully, until finding just the right amount of time to cook in the chamber. When ready, the bend happens quickly, with less than 30 seconds to get the piece of wood into a fixture using clamps. The patience of waiting and checking leading up to this moment of bending is worth everything. Then the work rests for two days. I look forward to opening the fixtures like little presents, to marvel at their elasticity and curve.
Fast forward to living in Ojai in 2021, I had been missing sculpture and began to notice the broken, washed-up pieces of kelp on the beach. I remember holding the blades and seeing my hand through it, oddly transparent. I did not know much about giant kelp at the time and started to research it. The more I learned, the more enchanted I became. Sequestering carbon, holding our coastlines, supporting hundreds of species, filtering the water, canopies growing up to 150 feet tall in ideal conditions—the list goes on and on.
Then I heard of bull kelp’s staggering decline in Northern California.
My heart sank. I wanted to do something.
Thinking back to my steam bending days, I began experimenting, bending plywood with the intention of creating a kelp forest. I did not know how this would stand up, but I followed my curiosity and the call. During this time, I wondered what kelp would look like in oil paint as well and began my first painting of kelp.
When painting, the senses come alive, and everything slows down. The nutty aroma of walnut oil paint fills the air. I love the feeling of the paintbrush in my hand, the thick texture, and brushstrokes setting the background. Working from thick to thin, layer after layer, adding and removing—the push and pull is methodical, intuitive, and playful. In my imagination, the movement of water emerges and the light breaks through the composition. A divine connection; time disappears. Drawing underwater worlds from photos and recent experiences, my attachment to the kelp forest deepens.
My enthusiasm for making art about kelp led me to find a benefit line in support of the forests. When I first discovered SeaTrees and learned of their successes in 2021, I felt hopeful for the restoration of kelp forests. In 2022, I partnered with them and continue to give 10% of all kelp-inspired artwork proceeds to help regenerate kelp and blue carbon ecosystems.
Together, we can make a difference.
