"My art is a celebration of color and light, a reflection of my time and life. Human faces and figures in their infinite variety have been my primary subject matter."
— Marilyn Belschner
Artist Bio
Marilyn was born in Beatrice, NE, and lived in Buffalo county for fifty years. She painted from her heart and her emotions. She was avid about researching her topics and obtained her own photographs for references when creating her work. Marilyn was inspired by American artists Georgia O’Keefe and Andrew Wyeth and studied independently with contemporary artists such as Sergi Bongart, Albert Handell, and Ned Jacob. In 1983 she painted in Italy while living in a sixteenth-century monastery. Human faces and figures were her primary subject matter. After years of seasonal visits to Taos, New Mexico, Marilyn established her "POCO TIEMPO", private studio, in Taos. This fulfilled a dream to live, paint, and study the people and faces of the southwest.
Marilyn established an art purchase endowment at the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA) in 1996 and has several pieces in their permanent collection. She also has work at the Hastings Museum in NE, is recognized in the archives of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; askArt.com; and has original work in hundreds of private collections across the country. Marilyn died in 2018 leaving all rights to publish and market her work to her daughter, Shawn Cogdill. We hope you enjoy viewing Marilyn’s work and learning more about this amazing artist on this web site.
Inspiration
Growing up in a period of abstraction, Marilyn followed a course of realism. Painting has been her means of expression and all that life gave her. "Forms, colors, light and its' reflections. It has been a wonderful journey" "There is a tremendous hunger to embrace what you see, to touch it, to feel it. My work is more about feeling than seeing."
Work
Marilyn received her first art award in the 1966 Governor's Centennial Art Show in Nebraska. She has illustrated two books in pen and ink, worked in watercolor and sculpture, as well as oils. Her preferred medium of expression is pastels.
Exhibitions
Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA), the Hastings Museum in Nebraska, and in numerous private collections. She exhibited in New Mexico, Nebraska, Colorado and Idaho. Marilyn documented what inspired her, how she researched her subjects, sketchbooks of her travels, leaving an entire body of work reflecting a life well lived…. IN THE ARTS.