Weekly drawing classes were a revelation to Marliese Scheller who knew then that she wanted to embrace that field. Having graduated from the Centre des métiers d’art, she moved on to Paris and attended l’École du Louvre where she read art-history and archaeology. There, she discovered Giotto, became fascinated by Michelangelo and by the art of Sumer and Mesopotamia. Her thesis led her to the Middle-East, to Byblos (Lebanon), where she was asked to be one of the instigator of the revival of the Zouk Manufactory; for three years she set herself to train the weavers to the Aubusson weaving technique and enlarged the looms. In 1961 a first exhibition of tapestries took place which put Zouk back on the map. At the beginning of the civil war in Lebanon, Marliese Scheller travelled for a while and then settled in Montreal in 1986. If Marliese Scheller joins the rank of tapestry-makers that helped fashion the Renaissance of tapestry, she also enjoys drawing, engraving and painting thus, continuously shifting the creative process.
“Being asked what my art represents, why I paint a certain subject or draw a certain way are questions to which I don’t have a readily made answer. Inspiration is flimsy; it is something that arises from within. It is not only what touches the inner soul but also something that evolves with time, a type of «work in progress» that is influenced by the seasons, moods, surroundings, ... In addition, I am inspired by Russian literature, nature and birds which represent an inner freedom while the Middle Ages, a period rich in creativity, has also left its imprint on my art.
Independent of the subject matter or medium, mastering of a technique is at the heart of my works. I am fortunate to have had early on in my career two masters: Henri H. Gowa, the middle ages pigment specialist, who gave me an insight into the realm of true colours and Frans Masereel who taught me graphic art and how to render luminosity through black and white surfaces.
If my oil paintings are an explosion of colours, mineral colours applied with a palette knife onto a hard gesso board, I have since experimented and adapted the technique of wood cut to ink drawings, enabling me to use larger surfaces to express myself; in the last five years I have also taken up Chinese calligraphy which to me is a natural evolution from graphic arts. To resume, each of the media becomes a vehicle through which I express a spontaneity that combines traditionalism with realism.”

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