Marion Held was born in New York City, and is currently a resident of Montclair, NJ. The sensuous surface quality of materials is essential to the sculptor Marion Held.  Held pairs wood and wood-fired clay in unique combinations to intensify their individuality.  Three Figures, realized during a residency at Chester Springs Studio in Chester Springs, PA, is composed of clay faces and torsos hung within a large wooden frame.  The metallic surface of high fired clay contrasts with the aged and weathered appearance of wood, bringing to mind an ancient structure or ritual.  Three Figures is intended to evoke an emotional response in the viewer based on associations which engage the mind when one encounters the work, and references “the passage of time and is intended to bring to mind an ancient structure or ritual.”

Held's current explorations add cast rubber and drawings on used fabric to her vocabulary of materials.  The natural color of the rubber and its translucent quality provide an unusual counterpoint to the opaque characteristics of other mediums.  Held works to make a sense of beauty, poetry, and sometimes whimsy integral to each piece.

Ben Genocchio, New York Times Art Critic commented about the artist’s work: “Ms. Held’s art is also surrealist in its emphasis on the subconscious significance of its objects and imagery, leaving it up to viewers to find their own meaning.”

Held’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States and abroad and is represented in many public and private collections.  She has traveled extensively as an artist-in-residence in Spain, Senegal, Poland and Israel, where she has created on-site installations, often using local materials.  She has been awarded fellowships from the NJ State Council on the Arts, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, TGD4 International Workshop, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and participated in the International Biennale, Beer-Sheva, Israel.  She has exhibited in solo shows at major museums and galleries, most recently at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey, and at Medialia Gallery in New York in 2010.

More information on this artist can be found at http://www.marionheld.com/.

Three Figures, 1993
wood, stoneware
91" x 64" x 21"
Courtesy of The Sculpture Foundation, Inc.