Mariellen Baker Biography

Pablo Oropeza, owner of Half Moon Bay Joe's, showed an amazing line drawing of himself to Tim Christensen. A few days later Christensen and D.B. Pacini were having lunch with Mariellen Baker, the artist.

Mariellen Baker’s unusual technique of painting with oils has attracted much attention in New York City and California. Although the mediums of “Realism” and “Representationalism” have been the generic classifications used to describe her style, it is more accurately described as a migration from Classical, Old Flemish Realism to “Hyper-Realism”.

Working from life and from photographs, Mariellen combines penetrating “crisp” detail with the Old Master’s technique of glazing, which gives the painting many layers of depth, When using graphite, her drawings have the same crisp detail, conveying the appropriate mood. She studied painting and drawing at the prestigious Art Student’s League in NYC for several years with some of the world’s greatest portrait, still life and landscape artists.

While in New York, Mariellen was associated with The Garrison Art Center, Garrison-On-Hudson, NY. She consistently was the top landscape artist at the “Artists On Location” charity auctions. Whether Mariellen paints a portrait, a landscape or a still life, the work is realism at its best.

Mariellen was commissioned by Pete Seeger and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to do a portrait of a local fisherman, which is on permanent loan to The Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Hudson River Fisheries Museum, Pace University School of Law, White Plains, NY.

Mariellen moved from Manhattan to California in 2000, having fallen in love with its incredible scenery and lifestyle. She lives in Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco.

She is currently working on a book, detailing her unusual glazing technique, and also provides art instruction classes in Half Moon Bay, as well as private students.