Marianita Stevans
Marianita Stevans grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and graduated from the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. She brings to her work a varied background that includes living in Italy where she sculpted in metals to a decade in the textile design industry. That winding path brought her to painting when she returned to school to pursue a Masters degree from the University of Delaware. Her own techniques as a painter are rooted in the close work she did with the conservation department of Winterthur during those years of graduate study. She is mindful of the chemistry of the painter’s materials yet, from that place of tradition, encourages her students to explore and experiment with ideas, concepts and materials. Her own paintings are explorations of internal and external spaces, rendered experiences and the human psyche made legible. In the classroom, she encourages students to consider just how our lives are manifested in our art and then how do we articulate those discoveries in the visual arena. Along with creative journaling and frequent group critiquing, students investigate artists who explore personal narrative by way of lectures, suggested reading and Internet exploration.
Marianita taught for many years at the Maryland Institute College of Art and relocated to North Carolina in 2006. She has a studio at 311 West Martin Street Studios and Galleries and is a founding member of the new Frank Gallery in Chapel Hill, where her work will be regularly displayed. Her paintings are in the corporate collections of Medtronic, Pacesetter, Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals and the Law Offices of Sally B. Gold in Baltimore, Maryland.