Emerging Artists | Marie Tippets

Marie Tippets, Around the World, pastel, 14 x 14.

Marie Tippets, Around the World, pastel, 14 x 14.

This story was featured in the January 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art January 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

Just a few weeks before the Thanksgiving holiday, pastelist Marie Tippets was settling back into her everyday routine in Dana Point, CA, after a whirlwind tour of New Zealand with her husband. “We try to take one international trip a year,” she says. “The world really doesn’t seem that big, the more you travel. It opens your eyes to so much.”

As one might expect, the artist’s global journeys have also offered Tippets infinite inspiration for her still lifes and figurative paintings. Her travels to Japan have been especially influential. “I felt such a relationship with the people, the history, and the culture,” she says. “Now, even in my still lifes, there’s an emphasis on Asian elements. I just love their sense of beauty.” It’s an aesthetic that pairs well with Tippets’ own interest in portraying intricate, meditative design work and colorful patterning. Such a combination can be both calming and compelling, she says. “As I study my work, I notice there’s a lot of that complexity and serenity, all in the same breath. The composition draws you in, and the magic of the light keeps you there.”

Tippets, a Master Circle member of the International Association of Pastel Societies, earned her degree in fine art and then ran a busy graphic-design business for many years before becoming a full-time painter. In her work today, the artist relishes layering and blending color while allowing a little texture from her surfaces to show through. “It’s my version of impressionism,” she says. “I don’t overwork the surface. People think my paintings are either oils or photographs because they are realistic. But then you see their textural sensuality, and I think that adds to the pleasure of the paintings.”

Find Tippets’ work at Chemers Gallery, Tustin, CA.

This story was featured in the January 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art January 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

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