Layered Landscapes

Stephanie Marzella paints moody, atmospheric scenes

By Liesel Schmidt

The arts have been a major line underscoring Stephanie Marzella’s life since she was a child. Beginning first with an undeniable passion and talent for the performing arts, she spent time in her youth under the bright lights of the stage, cast in plays or singing. By junior high school, she’d determined that her fate was not to be in front of a crowd, but rather in front of an easel.

Her talent emerged under the tutelage of what she says were “some really wonderful art instructors,” and she determined that she wanted to major in the visual arts in college. Encouraged by her instructors to attend art school, she entered a five-year BFA program at The Cleveland Institute of Art, where she majored in textile design and had a subsequent career as a fabric and wallpaper designer.

While that career path could challenge what many would traditionally consider art, Marzella saw the value in what her work taught her about color and design—which would later translate into traditional paintings inspired by her surroundings. 

A relocation from her hometown of Cleveland to Rhode Island in 1988 brought with it a shift in her career, and she began to design as a self-employed freelancer for multiple companies.

“That gave me flexibility to start my family…and begin creating art for myself,” she notes. “Eventually, I was able to focus solely on my art.”

That focus took shape through multiple mediums over the years, from gouache (opaque watercolor) to pastels and then, finally, to oils. The latter has been her mainstay, a way for her to explore the inspiration she feels, channeled through the brush to create moody, atmospheric scenes that are both breathtaking and evocative. Her work tends toward impressionism, escaping the strict lines of realism to allow the mind to create its own imagery within the lack of definition.

“I use a turn-of-the-century technique called oil glazing,” Marzella explains. “I start with a sepia tonal underpainting that must completely dry before adding color. Then, I begin adding many layers of transparent oil colors, working from dark to light. Each layer must fully dry before adding another layer. Because the oil layers are transparent, they shine through one another. When they are finished, the paintings seem to change color through the course of a day. This method of painting is time consuming and takes a lot of patience, but the result is worth the effort and enhances the mood and atmosphere.”

Such a method is the result of Marzella’s admiration of the work of George Inness, who fathered the American Tonalism school of painting.

“An American Tonalist show at the Boston Museum of Art changed the course of my artwork,” she says. “That show, combined with my move to Rhode Island, precipitated my change to landscape painting and influenced my technique because this group of painters focused on creating mood in a landscape painting.”

Marzella’s inspiration to pick up a brush and paint is easily found in the everyday. “I’m inspired by beauty of every kind,” she says. “I started with still life and painted everything in my apartment. When I moved to Rhode Island, I was fortunate to live on an inlet cove. The sun set in my backyard. It was really my first exposure to the ocean and kayaking, and it was there that I fell in love with tidal marshes and tidal changes. I switched to landscape painting because of the natural beauty there. I thought if I can express the soul-filling emotion that overcomes me when I experience something amazing in nature and connect the viewer to that emotion, that is what I want to achieve with my work. I want it to transport you to a feeling of peace, beauty and escape.”

Her love affair with the natural beauty of the coast brought her to Charleston in 2016, after her children were grown. “My next-door neighbor in Rhode Island came to Charleston in the early ’90s, and she told me how amazing the city was and that the art scene here was thriving,” Marzella recalls. “Over the years, several art magazines I subscribed to highlighted the city for its dedication to the arts, so it stayed on my radar. After our two children both graduated from art colleges and moved out of state, my husband and I took the leap and moved here. It’s a destination city that offers incredible opportunity for artists.”

Marzella’s work is represented by Reinert Fine Art. She is an active member of the American Women Artists, National Oil & Acrylics Painters Society, Oil Painters of America, American Impressionist Society, Salmagundi Club in New York City, Plein Air Painters of the Southeast and the Charleston Artists Guild. Her work can be viewed online at stephaniemarzella.com and @stephaniemarzella on Instagram ϒ