Photo credit: Sorcha Augustine
the Artist
Mardie Rees (b. 1980) is a fine artist and figurative sculptor who is native to the Pacific Northwest. Born into a creative household, her childhood was spent sewing garments and building homes, drawing pictures and visiting museums. In her adolescence, Rees’ family uprooted and moved to Ecuador to facilitate community development. The years spent in Latin American culture sparked her artistic expression and became a quest, a way for her to balance the familiar and the foreign. This broadened worldview set her on the path to be an artist for life.
Rees earned her BFA from Laguna College of Art and Design in 2003. In the years that have followed, she has created life-size bronze sculptures for museums, hospitals, schools, and collectors. She is represented by Nedra Matteucci Galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico and T.H. Brennen Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Rees has won many accolades for her emotive sculpture including Soul of the Forward and Faithful, a WWII U.S. Marine Raider Memorial currently housed at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. An Elected Member of National Sculpture Society, she is a two-time recipient of the Beverly Hoyt Robertson Memorial Award and a multiple award winner in Portrait Society of America’s International Competition & Exhibition. Rees has also been recognized and awarded by Allied Artists of America, the Marine Heritage Foundation, and the prestigious Art Renewal Center International Salon Competition.
Mardie lives in Gig Harbor, Washington with her husband, Jeremy, and their three children. Her delight in all people and their stories is the lens through which she captures relationships and the fundamental duality of human life: bitter and sweet.
Artist Statement
Through sculpture I seek to explore one of the fundamental dualities of human life: bitter and sweet. The human form is my muse; I study the physical exterior that reveals the sacred inner self. As I shape and cut into clay with handcrafted wooden tools, I compose dynamic gestures eager to explore the very breath of life, the persona in three-dimensional form. Like our true selves, my work has no pretense of perfection: tool marks and fingerprints characterize the gritty edges of our beautiful lives. Though I have ultimate control over the outcome, my pieces inevitably contain elements of mystery, shadows of the stories shared between model and sculptor. Our lives are defined by the highs and lows of relationship. Despite the struggles we face, my work evokes the wholeness and goodness of who we are.
THE ARCHITECT
Alongside every great artist stands an Architect. Mardie has her devoted husband, Jeremy Broderick. Jeremy grew up outside Boston, Massachusetts where he discovered his love of the arts and sciences as well as the beauty of our natural and built environments. After achieving his Bachelors of Architecture from Roger Williams University, he managed and operated a design-build firm with several of his colleagues in New England. Jeremy employs his skills in architecture, construction, and entrepreneurship at Mardie Rees Artist to facilitate larger projects and to help introduce more sculpture to the world. Jeremy holds a professional license in the state of Washington, and works for Ratcliffe Gagliano Architecture in Gig Harbor.