the Artist

Mardie Rees (b. 1980) is a fine artist and figurative sculptor who is native to the Pacific Northwest. Rees earned her BFA from Laguna College of Art and Design in 2003. Rees creates life-size bronze sculptures for museums, hospitals, schools, and collectors. Rees is recognized and awarded by National Sculpture Society, Portrait Society of America, Allied Artists of America, the Marine Heritage Foundation, and the prestigious Art Renewal Center International Salon Competition. She is a two-time recipient of the Beverly Hoyt Robertson Memorial Award and a multiple award winner in Portrait Society of America’s International Competition & Exhibition. She is an Elected Member of National Sculpture Society and has Signature Status with Portrait Society of America.

Rees has won many accolades for her emotive sculpture and her most recognized works include Soul of the Forward and Faithful, a WWII U.S. Marine Raider Memorial currently housed at the National Museum of the Marine Corps; as well as Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, a monumental size work including a cape of fifty roses. She is represented by Nedra Matteucci Galleries in Santa Fe, and TH Brennen Fine Art in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Background

Mardie Rees was born into a creative household, her childhood was spent sewing garments and building homes, drawing pictures and visiting museums. In her adolescence, Rees’ family uprooted and moved to Ecuador to facilitate community development. The years spent in Latin American culture sparked her artistic expression and became a quest, a way for her to balance the familiar and the foreign. This broadened worldview set her on the path to be an artist for life. Her delight in all people and their stories is the lens through which she captures relationships and the fundamental duality of human life: bitter and sweet.

Rees lives in Gig Harbor, Washington with her husband, Jeremy Broderick, and their three children.

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Artist Statement

Through sculpture I seek to explore one of the fundamental dualities of human life: bitter and sweet. The human form is my muse; I study the physical exterior that reveals the sacred inner self. As I shape and cut into clay with handcrafted wooden tools, I compose dynamic gestures eager to explore the very breath of life, the persona in three-dimensional form. Like our true selves, my work has no pretense of perfection: tool marks and fingerprints characterize the gritty edges of our beautiful lives. Though I have ultimate control over the outcome, my pieces inevitably contain elements of mystery, shadows of the stories shared between model and sculptor. Our lives are defined by the highs and lows of relationship. Despite the struggles we face, my work evokes the wholeness and goodness of who we are.