Born in Thuringen, Germany in 1939, she lived in London, England before coming to Canada in 1959 and Sudbury in 1968. A passionate hiker, canoeist and birder, she has explored every ridge, lake and pathway of Killarney Provincial Park. In 1974 she completed an undergraduate degree in Botany at Laurentian University and worked in the University’s Herbarium. She has also been recognized for her contribution to the Canadian Breeding Bird Atlas, the Mammal Atlas, the Canadian Lakes Loon Survey and as the president of the Sudbury Naturalists.
In 1995, a decade after her artist son Peter’s untimely death, she turned to art. She was curious to see the world as he had seen it. During the winter of 1997 Marlies studied watercolour painting at the Instituto de las Bellas Artes in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. In 1999 she went back to San Miguel to study pastels and life drawing at the Instituto Allende. Brian Atyeo of Haliburton School of Fine Arts and Linda Finn from the White Mountain Academy in Elliot Lake have also been major influences on the direction of her art. However, it was Claudia Jean McCabe who introduced Marlies to the brilliant colours of fluid acrylics which have become Marlies’ passion and vibrate in her paintings of northern landscapes.
During the summer months she instructs watercolour sketching at Killarney Provincial Park, YMCA’s Camp Queen Elizabeth and John Island, Camp Manitou as well as on “Paddle and Paint” trips in Georgian Bay and the North Channel.
Marlies Schoenefeld is well known for her landscapes of Killarney Park and the North Channel of Lake Huron. The woods, water and rock of the Canadian Shield were Marlies Schoenefeld’s training ground. Her love of the outdoors and the natural world has inspired her to find the essence of the northern landscape. She uses this knowledge of the woods, the waters and the rocks to simplify the complexity of colour and shapes to the absolute essentials enabling the viewer to feel the scene and become a part of it.
Biography
Marlies finds the simplicity of soft pastels a most satisfying medium to use in the summer. They fit easily into a backpack and travel well in a canoe or kayak.
In the winter she paints with acrylics in her lakeside studio (Frogpond Studio) outside Sudbury. An active member of the Sudbury Art Club, she organized programs and workshops for the group and often travels to exotic locations looking for new ways to see the natural world.
Today Marlies’ paintings hang in private collections in Canada, the United States and Europe.
Marlies has exhibited, won prizes and sold her paintings at juried shows such as the La Cloche Art Show in Whitefish Falls , “The Disappearing Landscapes” Show of the Headwaters Arts Festival at the Caledon Centre for Culture in Alton, Ontario, “The Willisville Mountain Project”, the exhibit at “La Nouvelle Scène” in Ottawa, the “100 Squares” show at the Tom Thomson Gallery in Owen Sound.
Solo exhibits were at the Sudbury Theatre Centre, the Sudbury Art Gallery II, Black Cat II, the Northern Ontario Cancer Centre and The Green Teapot.
The Sudbury Art Gallery’s rental program “Local Colour” contains a number of Marlies’ paintings, as well as selling them in the gift shop of the Sudbury Art Gallery.