Marilene is a New Hampshire artist, born in Egypt, grew up in Italy and the Middle East. After Marilene's arrival in the USA in 1980, her first paintings were inspired by her education in Interior Design and Architecture and her taste for enigmatic, colorful images. Although she started with landscapes and painted hundreds of them, her personal preferences lead to a different style, born from the art imagery she came in contact with throughout the years. Influenced by Medieval, Russian, Oriental, Indian and Persian Art, Marilene explored visualizing a secret world with different applications of paint.
Her first series of women goes back to 1981, after my recent move to New England. At first "The Ladies" were painted with watercolor or acrylic and inspired by a luminous stained glass window that used to cover an entire wall of her grandmother's home in Egypt. She used to call them the "Stained Glass Ladies". Marilene Sawaf's art is a blend of bright colors and designs taken from the Mediterranean. She has combined traditional techniques of the countries where she lived to create her style... "...Much of her inspiration for the design in the clothing and background is inspired by Oriental carpets as well as Medieval and Renaissance paintings and designs,"