Mardie Rees, Sculptor
Artist Biography
Mardie Rees was born in Gig Harbor, Washington where her desire to create became apparent at an early age. Her childhood was spent drawing, reading, and helping out her timber framer father on the latest project by tiling, and plastering walls. At age fourteen the Rees family of five decided to spend three years in Ecuador doing community development. Over the course of the next three years Mardie discovered that art was a means for her survival as she was plunged into a third world awareness. She immersed herself into oil painting, acrylics, sculpture, and joined a team that painted twenty murals throughout the regions of Ecuador.
In 2000, Rees began her studies at Laguna College of Art and Design, in Laguna Beach California. After being introduced to figure sculpture, Mardie Rees discovered her love for working three dimensionally. Rees received her BFA with honors in 2003 and returned to the Northwest to set up her studio.
Rees has participated in numerous shows throughout Southern California and the Northwest. Her Jacob’s Struggle series participated in a nine month tour of Southern California in 2006-2007. Rees’ sculpture, “The Woman from Samaria” was unveiled at the Lone Wolf Project Show which drew over nine hundred people from the greater south sound.
In 2005 Mardie Rees was commissioned by the City of Gig Harbor, WA, to sculpt a large medallion for Skansie Brother’s Park downtown. Later she was commissioned by art collectors Sharon & Don Castle, to sculpt their family tradition including Don and their two sons. In 2007 Rees was selected to sculpt a life size figure of St. Anthony & Child for the lobby of Gig Harbor’s new Franciscan hospital which opens in 2009.
Mardie Rees lives with her husband, Jeremy Broderick, in Gig Harbor, Washington. She continues to sculpt in her studio on commissions and her own series of works. To see what she is currently creating, visit her studio journal.