Marsha Hammel

(b.1949)

Working primarily in oils on both canvas and paper, Marsha Hammel creates figurative still life and portrait paintings. Deeply inspired by various locales and human experiences, her works have been widely collected in the USA, UK, and Europe. As the daughter of U.S.A.F personnel, Hammel’s early years took her through much of the United States, Panama, Germany and Italy. At the age of sixteen, Hammel was selected to attend the Governor’s School for Gifted Students in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Between 1968 and 1971 she attended the Virginia Commonwealth University, studying in the Fine Arts Department.  It was at this point that Hammel came under the influence of the Classical and European approaches to art, an influence that continues to the present day. Her work also takes inspiration from early Modernists, as well as primitive forms and styles in keeping with early Egyptian, Minoan and Mycenaen art. Hammel strives to present her figures in simple, powerful terms with reductive backgrounds.