Strength in Sadness Painting

Awarded Southwest Art Magazine’s ’21 Under 31: Young Artists to Watch in 2019,’ Malena Marie is a contemporary realism painter specializing in large-scale portraits of people and animals. Born in small-town Iowa, she began drawing on anything she could get her hands on as a small child and quickly realized that figurative and anatomical painting came easily. Coupled with her curiosity for capturing people's stories, the self-taught artist subsequently began selling work at a young age after developing her signature black and white style using acrylics. Each piece strips away color cues, enabling viewers to delineate their own colorful narrative of the subject, and are riddled detailed foregrounds opposite blended backgrounds. What resembles a photograph from afar exceeds capabilities of photography up close. Malena's work has recently evolved into colored oil paintings. Her upcoming series, titled "Masked," explores feminine beauty and strength, featuring intimate portraits of women juxtaposed by powerful masks representational of fortitude. As the artist, she maintains full creative control of the process - from hand making the masks, to selecting and photographing models, and free-handing and painting each piece. Malena currently lives and works in her Southern California studio.