Marlene Lowden grew up in an ocean side rural town on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, just outside of Vancouver, Canada. After several years in broadcasting, she resumed her lifelong interest in painting, drawing, and photography. She draws from her experience in television and video production, applying to canvas similar principles of composition and storytelling. While working and raising her two daughters, she studied with a range of instructors to learn watercolour, acrylic, and oil painting techniques.
Lowden has an enduring fascination for women’s history, especially women in art and literature. Her study of history and geography at UBC continues to develop her awareness of the profound but often unacknowledged impact women have had on Canada’s cultural, economic, and political past. She is particularly drawn to the women of the Abstract Expressionist movement that developed in the 1940s. Their pushback against the macho world of mid-20th century abstract painting and the subsequent rise of the Feminist Art Movement in the 1960s has been influential on Lowden’s signature mark-making style.
Lowden is also a workshop facilitator and yoga teacher. She co-hosts art and yoga retreats called Open Your Art with painter Marleen Vermeulen in Spain. She has published an adult colouring book called Outside Your Lines. She enjoys sharing her philosophy of art making and reaches out to her community by offering demos and as a volunteer instructor in schools and at festivals. She lives and works in her hometown of Gibsons, BC. She is honoured to have her work in private collections in Canada and internationally.
You can see her artwork at marlenelowden.com and follow her process on Instagram.
Articles & Press
More by Her – Feature article
Place des Arts – Profile
Revelstoke Mountaineer
The Local Weekly, Sunshine Coast