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One day’s painting on the Salesforce wall, compressed into a few minutes. The mural was still a day from finished when this was filmed.

Shot by Brian Ashby.

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I painted a mural ten feet high and forty feet long at the Salesforce Transit Center, over three days, finishing it in public on 11 August 2018 during the block party that opened the building.

I painted live at the de Young on the evening of 4 September 2015, during one of the museum’s Friday Nights, and showed five new oil paintings alongside the demonstration. The occasion was the museum’s J.M.W. Turner exhibition.

From the de Young’s own listing:

Artist Marius Starkey will paint en plein air inspired by the works of J.M.W. Turner in the de Young’s Osher Sculpture Garden, responding to the sublime beauty of the light, sky, and trees surrounding the garden. Visitors are welcome to draw alongside Marius while the sun sets or the fog drifts in.

The Ocean Series — a major group of paintings about our deep emotional and physical connection with the ocean — was shown at UCSF’s Sandler Neuroscience building in Mission Bay, in the Memory and Aging Center’s Gallery 190.

The show ran from 28 June to 25 September 2015, with an opening reception on 23 July.

An exhibition of new large paintings hung on the second floor of San Francisco City Hall, in Supervisor Scott Wiener’s office, from November 2014 through February 2015. The opening reception was on 18 November.

A short film of Sails of the Bay being painted — the five-foot heart I made for San Francisco General Hospital’s Heroes and Hearts project.

Open Studios weekend at the Hunters Point Shipyard, 9 and 10 November 2013. I showed recent work in Building 116, Studio 10.

A solo show of recent work opened at Sanyok Gallery in Sausalito on 17 October 2013 and ran to the end of the month.

It came shortly after I was selected as one of the painters for the San Francisco Heroes and Hearts project benefiting the SF General Hospital Foundation.

I was one of eight artists chosen to paint a heart for San Francisco General Hospital’s Heroes and Hearts. They are not small objects: five feet tall and four hundred pounds apiece.

The finished hearts were presented on the field at AT&T Park in February 2014 and auctioned to benefit the SF General Hospital Foundation.

The Legion of Honor was showing Impressionists on the Water — eighty paintings by Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and their contemporaries. I painted live in the galleries on 6 and 13 October, working in three different mediums, in the manner of the painters on the walls around me.

The second day was given over to plein-air painting on the museum grounds.

I’m showing new works at Sanyok Gallery during the Sausalito Contemporary Art Festival.

Here is some info about the Festival: Sanyok Gallery is thrilled to launch Sausalito Contemporary Art Festival, a celebration that will give visitors a rare opportunity to see the artworks of the most prominent and authentic artists of Northern California. The rigorous artist preselection process was based on the following criteria: profound vision and expression, high professionalism, innovation, and talent. Sanyok Gallery curatorial team meticulously searched through hundreds of applications to find 6 most original and talented contemporary artists living and working in Northern California. The team is excited to unveil and showcase the nominated artists and their work at the Festival Launch this Thursday, 6pm.

SCAF Opening Night Party on Thursday, August 1st, 6pm-9pm

Sanyok Gallery 819 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965. phone: (415) 332-8400 Gallery Hours: 11am-5pm or by appointment

Sanyok Gallery Website Sanyok Gallery on Google Maps

Open to the public just two weekends a year, this is a rare opportunity to buy local art right from the source. This historic naval site, nestled on the Bay, is the creative backdrop for these artists. Scattered through eight buildings at two sites, the 28 year old art colony offers a moveable feast of original artworks, including painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, jewelry, ceramics and textiles.

I will be showing my new painting this weekend!

You will find me and my works at:

Hunters Point Shipyard Building 116, Studio 10

May 4 & 5, 2013
: 11am - 6 pm

 Free admission
, Free abundant and secure parking. Explore more than 130 working studios featuring San Francisco’s top artists.

Hunters Point Shipyard Open Studios Event: San Francisco, CA www.artspan.org

Nothing I have experienced intelligently and deeply has had more of an effect on my life than what art has brought to me – my emotional center. Something wonderful happens in the act of painting, – there is always the element of surprise for me perhaps because it allows me to create a genre of reality that is both spiritual and personal. For this year’s Open Studio, I have completed a series of new works that explore aspects of color, brushstroke structure and space to recount the complexity of nature and life.

When: Saturday, November 3rd, 2012 from 11am to 6pm and Sunday, November 4th from 11am to 6pm.

Where: Hunter’s Point Shipyard: Building 116 in Studio 10 (open garden patio outside our studio.)

About SF Open Studios: This is the oldest & largest open studios program in the country, featuring an annual, month-long art event in October that showcases over 900 emerging & established SF artists in their studios. Each weekend, art patrons, admirers & collectors venture out on self-guided tours to see art works & meet with artists at their working studios.

I love hearing voices, check out my live painting video and enjoy the fun

SFO T2 Employee Wrap and Community Open House Event Date: Thursday, April 7 and Saturday, April 9, 2011 Event Time: 6:00 – 9:00 PM Wrap 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM COH Performance Venue/Area: Terminal 2, SFO; Location TBD Performance Schedule: 6:00 – 7:00 PM and 7:30 –8:00 PM Wrap (Sat open to the public and free event) 1:00 — 2:00 PM and 3:00 – 4:00 PM COH

Marius at De Young Museum of Art Oct 15th and 22nd and Nov 12th 2010 What: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond live painting demo Where: De Young Museum of Aar, Main Lobby, San Francisco When: 6pm-8:30 p.m. Marius will be showing his paintings and will be demonstrating his pastel and drawing techniques from 6pm to 8:30pm on Friday Oct 15th and 22nd in honor of the De Young’s show called Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond

What: “Paris, City of Lights” Where: Legion of Honor, Main Lobby, San Francisco When: 12:00 – 3:00 p.m. Marius will be showing his paintings and will be demonstrating his painting techniques from 12 to 3pm on Sat Sept 18th at the Legion of Honor to celebrate Legion of Honor’s show called “Paris, City of Lights” I will be painting from a photograph and creating a new image.

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Piazzoni Murals Room 6:00–8:45 p.m. Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musee d’Orsay painting demonstration by San Francisco artist Marius Starkey. Marius demonstrates the same techniques used by the artists who are included in this exciting exhibition. Watch Marius do a landscape painting, create a pastel, and make a watercolor. Talk to Marius and ask questions as he works and enjoy a very creative moment at the de Young Museum.

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I’m participating in this year’s Open Studios at Hunter’s Point Shipyard. You can find me and a collection of my work at Building No. 116, Studio #10. The studios are open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. I’m looking forward to seeing you!

I always start my art residences, by giving a lecture on the lives of a few artists. I began one class by talking about the great Mexican muralist, Diego Riviera, partly because the class was mainly made up of Latino students. I needed them to know about the intense and unremitting labor required to create a great work of art. And yet, I also wanted them to know that even a rather over-weight ugly man with bulging eyes could still be charming and successful during his life. He was famous not only for his great work and talent, but also for his charismatic personally. Everyone wanted to be around him and in spite of his appearance many found him irresistible and exciting. As I ended my lecture, one rather over-weight student raised his hand and asked, “Were can I get some charisma?”

At the beginning of many of my art residency, I have a color mixing session, as many of my students have never had an art class before so they have no knowledge of mixing colors. After explaining the process, I noticed one student looking quite wide-eyed. As I walked over to his desk I asked, “How are you doing?” He looked up at me sort of bewildered and said in all seriousness, “This is the best day of my life!” I asked, “why?” He answered, “Because its magic. I can make my own colors, the way I want.” This human act changed something in his life. By simply mixing colors, he now knows how to control his own art world, which filled him with awe!

The Open Studio at Hunters Point Ship Yard (www.hunterspointcommunity.com) was a great success. Some 400 people came to the building 116 studio 10 to see my work along with my studio mate Rob Cox. May 2nd and 3rd saw some 150 studios open to the public and even with the rain many people came to see the artist work. I sold three paintings and talked with so many people who came into my studio…it was great!

The recent sales include an abstract painting on paper that I did last year. It was a painting that was slated for a commission that was not chosen but it is still a very good abstract and I was very pleased that it found a good collector to own it And I sold a small oil on panel to a collector in Oakland, California and another Pastel to collectors in Pacifica, California.

One day while driving outside of Taos, I spotted my next landscape to paint. I parked myself about 10 feet inside the entrance of a dirt road. I quickly unloaded my painting materials and set-up my easel. After sometime, I was approached by a Pueblo police officer that demanded I get off their property. Unbeknown to me, I had wandered into private Pueblo Indian land. I apologized and quickly began to pack up my things.

In my haste to drive away, I forget to pick up my painting and left it near the front tire of my car. I had just started to drive the car when I felt it had run over something. Almost instantly, I remembered that I had not loaded the painting I’d been working on. I jumped out and saw I had indeed run over my own painting. The canvas was face down with the car tire still on it. I quickly moved the car off the painting; amazingly, the painting was still intact. I simply brushed off the dirt and gravel from the surface of the canvas and placed it inside the car. Later, I finished that painting on location but this time outside the private Indian land. I recently sold this painting, which I named “Taos Mountain” because it was a picture with great texture – lots of dirt that was embedded into the paint and power from its ordeal of being created.

A few years back, I won the Helene Wurlitzer award for painting; the prize was a three-month residency in Taos, New Mexico. One day, I found myself painting just at the edge of town when a heavyset woman sprang out from a house nearby with a shotgun and four little, yapping dogs. Walking towards me, she said that she’d seen a bear around earlier that morning and that I had better watch out. Afterward, she lumbered back towards her ramshackle house trailed by her four little dogs. I quickly finished my painting as fast as I could because I didn’t want to hang around and wait to have either her or the bear come back!

I have always found power, energy, and inspiration from the locations that I use as subjects for my paintings. It is the give and take from the view where I stand, the time of day, the temperature, the wind, and the light that fuse my attention and direct how I will interpret that landscape. Many times I will have the image of the landscape in my mind from previous visits to the site. The image has been burned into my psyche and will not let me go until I realize a painting of that place. My mood dictates what palette of colors I prepare on that day. When I arrive I may even start painting without drawing. I want to react to the location emotionally and show how I feel about the spot through the colors. I do not record a place in a way of the Impressionist’s painters; instead I am reacting from within, changing my color use according to how I am experiencing the place and not just how I am seeing it. Within my mind and in the composition I may coax buildings closer to one another or drift a tree, a path, or a body of water further from my view. It feels right when I make these changes, not only for my composition but also for the emotional impact that I want to convey about of the place. Many times I will find myself elevating above the scene in my mind. It’s my consciousness floating from my body over the land and painting it from a different vantage point, literally levitating above it.

Though Vincent Van Gogh’s attacks of the canvas with jabs and punches of color and force have inspired how I apply my paint, I do differ from him in the end results. I want the viewers of my paintings to be surprised and shocked at my choices of colors so they are seeing a landscape that cannot be real but somehow exists on the canvas. Armed with my brushes, palette and favorite palette knife, I use thin layers of paint to begin to build the image. Different types of brush strokes rise from my body to take on forms that attract me. Some times I paint very fast, then slowly – the tempo varying according the varying emotions of the composition. I am always amazed at what I am looking at: the colors, forms and light vie for my attention, screaming to be included in my composition to convey my emotions. I use a multitude of brushes, not wanting to stop working to clean them, the unexpected colors surprise and stir me. And when I finally stop, I have spent my paint and feel drained of excitement and my inner vision is completed so I no longer feel I just have to paint that place.

I find gratification in the moments of joy and pride that emerge from the students when they discover something new from their work. I like to unlock their creativity so it becomes a tangible work of art from which it can be shared and learned. The fact that I facilitate in this discovery process and witness these students become creative always brings me back to teaching. Further, their growing enthusiasm and sense of wonder propel me in my own creative work.

The John Swett School administration (San Francisco School District) wanted a mural about California’s history permanently painted on the schools’ exterior walls. When I told my students, a mixture of predominantly African American and Asian kids from low-income families, of this, I did not get a single response. Instead I just saw blank stares. These students were different from my own background and upbringing; I needed their help in finding out what would excite them to be creative. I asked, “What do you want to draw?” After a moment of silence, one student in the back of the room finally shouted, “ I want to draw cars!” Then all the other students joined, “Cars!” Cars would not have been my choice for the mural but the students explained to me that cars were important to them – cars were critical parts of their neighborhood. I knew that it was important for them to be supported by me in their choice so they could be creative. Every single student knew actually what he or she wanted to express and they held back nothing. For the first time, these students were creatively inspired and felt a connection with the mural – a sense of pride and meaning as a group. I was proud of their achievement and fought with the school to accept and understand why the mural fits their intent. After awhile, they too saw the relevance of this beautiful mural.

I strive to make a positive difference in my students’ lives by helping them to expand, and discover their own creativity. This can affect their lives in so many ways. In one school, I was doing a color mixing class when I noticed a student looking quite wide-eyed. As I walked over to him, I asked, “How are you doing?” He looked up at me and said in all seriousness, “This is the best day of my life!” I asked, “Why?” He answered, “Because its magic. I can make my own colors, the way I want.”

One of my most successful residencies came recently at a school in Novato. The PTA had funded my residency and also bought 36 – 4’x 8 feet wooden panels for a huge mural project. The Principal wanted all the students at the school to be involved in this project. At the first planning meeting I attended, it became apparent that not everyone was interested in participating in this mural project. I saw some very tired and overwhelmed teachers. Half the teachers voiced concerns about the size and hard work of the project and the other half looked quite bored and not engaged. Also the teachers had absolutely no concept of what could be done as far as subject matter for their grade level.

So I separately meet with the teachers as a group from each grade level to work out their subject matter for the mural. Then I meet individually with each of them to work out further details for their own class needs and curriculum integration. My goal was to engage each teacher and to have them take ownership and pride in the project.

One by one the teachers got excited as the mural took on a life of its own. Full of passionate intensity, the students drew and painted huge images on the panels. Slowly each panel began to take shape with distinctive and versatile forms. A couple of weeks into the project, something extraordinary happened – some of the teachers began painting along with their students. It was a striking image of pure fun!

As the mural project hummed along, the mood of the whole school began to change. Each time I walked through the halls of the school, I would pass a giant painted panel placed outside each classroom, so everyone could see the creative development. Then I had each teacher put a call out for parent volunteers. This was a natural step, because each day the students would bring in their parents to see the progress of each panel. Several parents came to each session to help out. Some classes put together four panels horizontally to make one very huge image. Others placed their panels vertically to make another image. I witnessed everyone working together like a full rhymed sonnet. Everyone felt joy and astonishment at there own work! The change of the whole school was dramatic! Within nine weeks of my residency everything was different about the school. It was now on the map as a “school of art.”

I have seen directly what art and creativity can do for a student. Often the students I teach have never had art lessons so their first introduction to art is discovery in visual wonderment and awe. Combining different art techniques such as; color mixing, textures, and line drawing helps students understand their way of seeing is unique and that everyone sees the world differently.

Learning visually also changes how a person sees his/her environment and how he/she relates to it. When a student does a drawing using perspective he/she learns proportions, distance, and form. Furthermore, as a student paints he/she is engaging a different part of the brain, enhancing visual acuity, hand eye motor functions, and complementing other skills by broadening a total visual awareness. This transformation makes a significant impact on the student’s life by changing the way the student perceives the world. I have witnessed this change many times and it is the main reason why I teach. I became an artist because I embraced my own creative transformation at a young age. Now I want to share this creative spark with everyone with whom I come in contact with.

Over the years, I’ve had the extraordinary experience of working with countless students, on numerous art projects using the full breath of my artistic skills. During my short time at each school, I’ve watched my students grow from having no previous art experience to seeing them hold back nothing creatively. Each residency has brought a tantalizing taste of the power of art. However, once the students and I are in rhythm, my residency would be over. Students and teachers alike wish I could continue my work with them. We all feel inspired, enlightened and entertained. I am saddened to think that all schools do not have a full time art teacher on staff.

I understand the importance of creating a safe and secure environment for the students to express themselves and take risks without repercussions from shame, embarrassment and phobias. In order to foster such an atmosphere, I maintain this security from the individual student to the collective. The sanctity of one’s and the whole’s expression are equally valued in all my classes whether it is a private or a public inner city school with all the students flourishing under my guidance.

I was teaching a class of 6th graders and as I walked around the classroom I noticed one student separate from the rest of the class. It was obvious from reactions of other students that he was not well liked and when I talked with him he seemed to lack self-confidence. To help him overcome this problem I made sure no one bothered him while he was working. I kept him focused on his drawing while visiting him as I made my usual rounds to all the students. He worked hard on his image of a red wagon with horses and when he told me he liked his image I asked if he wanted to share it with the other students. I then invited small groups of students to come over to see what he was doing and they complimented his work. I watched as he began to change from a quiet and timid kid to an open and self-assured person. With his newfound confidence he began to interact with his classmates and they in turn started to see him in a different way too. Near the end of my class session, he came up and handed me his business card artfully printed “Wagon Builder,” with his name, phone number and email address. The next week, as I entered the classroom he came up to me and said, “I gave you my card why didn’t you call me?” I kept his card to remind me how the experience of Art creates a real identity and lets one become self-confident and provides one with the power to overcome all kinds of obstacles.

I will be directing the painting of a mural through Young Audiences of Northern California at Wornick Jewish Day School in the Bay Area. I will visit the school 8 times to create a huge mural with two different classes. More details and updates about the mural with pictures will follow…

On Saturday and Sunday of November 1st and 2nd, 2008, I will be participating in the SF Open Studios annual event at my Hunters Point Shipyard studio (www.hunterspointcommunity.com) My studio will be open to the public, so my artwork can be seen. I will display a number of my large figurative paintings as well as my landscapes.

The SF Open Studios is a City wide event where artists open their studios to the public for three weekends in October and the first weekend in November. For more information on this event go too www.artspan.org and to www.hunterspointcommunity.com.

Hunter Point Shipyard, San Francisco on November 1st and 2nd, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Building 117, Studio 3105B.