Marcella Muhammad

 

An award winning published international fine artist, and more recently, author. She is recognized for her elegant style, intricate detail and vibrant colors. Her work reflects the current events, history, emotions, and beauty she experiences around her in everyday life.  In addition to her original oil paintings, Marcella is recognized for her popular licensed art series of “Ladies With Hats.” To convey her message, Marcella maintains her flexibility of expression through the use of realism, still life, and abstraction.

 

Encouraged by her family, who recognized her natural talent at an early age, Marcella dedicated herself to study art professionally.  Pablo Picasso’s Cubism, which explores the linear effect of light on objects, was Marcella’s inspiration to develop her own signature style of representational abstract that she named “Plastic Space™” and has been using since 1964. Lois Mailou Jones was another strong, early influence and inspired her to explore the images reflecting her own culture.

 

Marcella has exhibited her work in schools, museums, galleries and art festivals throughout the country.  In 2002, Marcella’s work was accepted in the Hampton University Museum’s “New Power Generation, A National Juried Exhibition of African American Art” in the very same building that houses the great Henry O. Tanner masterpieces among other notables.  She is very proud of the Southern Roots™ Distinguished Alabama Artist Award from The Academy of Arts, Inc. at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the fact that they purchased one of her works for their permanent collection. Another exciting time was when Marcella was commissioned to do a painting of Cleopatra VII for the APEX Museum in Atlanta, Georgia. It was featured with two other of her works in their video presentation entitled, “The Journey” narrated by the late Ossie Davis and shown on a regular basis in their museum theatre. A more recent crowning moment was to have the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African American Culture at the University of Montgomery Alabama purchase two of her works and accept another for their permanent collection.

             

Daughter of a Lieutenant in the Air Corps who taught Tuskegee Airman to fly and career Air Force officer, Marcella Hayes Muhammad was fortunate to live in Japan, France, Germany and many parts of the United States.  She had the rare opportunity to learn about and experience other cultures at a young age.  Aware of the importance of culture, she recalls listening to her father, Harold Hayes and other original Tuskegee Airmen talk about their struggles and triumphs.  This instilled in her a pride of her culture and a positive outlook as reflected in her paintings.

 

Marcella credits her mother, Ruth Hayes, a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, for shaping her views of culture, people and especially artistic expression by exposing her to the many art museums available during their travels and encouraged her natural talents in the arts.

         

 

In 1995, after a successful career teaching elementary education, Marcella relocated to Georgia with her husband, Alee, founded Maruva Studio and dedicated herself to painting full-time.  In 2000, her sister Dianne Hayes Quarles joined her and together founded Maruva DQ, Inc., a fine art and art licensing company.

 

Marcella earned her BFA with honors from the California State University at San Bernardino.  She also studied at the California College of Art and Design at Oakland and the University of California at Riverside.  Her formal training and extensive experience gives her an extraordinary command of style and media few artists possess. 

  She is active in local and national art organizations. Marcella has participated in many art conferences where she has served as a guest-speaker and conducted master-classes and workshops. Marcella keeps current with invitational, Museum and gallery shows. She is an author of a fictional novel published under the title, A Quilt Of Dreams and another biographical book about her signature style of Plastic Space™ abstract under the title, A Journey Through Plastic Space™.