Marlene Creates
Marlene Creates is an environmental artist who lives in a 6-acre (2.4 hectares) patch of old-growth boreal forest, traversed by the Blast Hole Pond River, in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland/Ktaqmkuk, Canada. She calls this site The Boreal Poetry Garden, and it has been the focus of her work since 2002.
Between 2005–2019 she held over 40 multidisciplinary collaborative guided walks in the boreal forest which were attended by over 900 people. In 2022–2024, about 300 local elementary school children came for guided walks, which included other multi-disciplinary artists performing for them, followed by memory map drawing workshops.
For over forty-five years her art has been an exploration of the reciprocal relationships between human experience, memory, language and the land. Her work has been presented in over 350 exhibitions and screenings across Canada and internationally. She has curated several exhibitions, worked in artist-run centres, and taught visual arts at colleges and universities.
She has been a guest lecturer and key note speaker at over 250 institutions and conferences across Canada and abroad, including Chile, Italy, the UK, and the USA, among them the National Gallery of Canada, the Glasgow School of Art, the University of Oxford, the University of Hartford, the Edinburgh College of Art, and the Universities of Turin, Venice, and Siena.
Marlene Creates was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2001; in 2019 she received a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for “Lifetime Artistic Achievement.” In 2021 she was named to the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador, and in 2024 she received an Honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from Memorial University.
Between 2005–2019 she held over 40 multidisciplinary collaborative guided walks in the boreal forest which were attended by over 900 people. In 2022–2024, about 300 local elementary school children came for guided walks, which included other multi-disciplinary artists performing for them, followed by memory map drawing workshops.
For over forty-five years her art has been an exploration of the reciprocal relationships between human experience, memory, language and the land. Her work has been presented in over 350 exhibitions and screenings across Canada and internationally. She has curated several exhibitions, worked in artist-run centres, and taught visual arts at colleges and universities.
She has been a guest lecturer and key note speaker at over 250 institutions and conferences across Canada and abroad, including Chile, Italy, the UK, and the USA, among them the National Gallery of Canada, the Glasgow School of Art, the University of Oxford, the University of Hartford, the Edinburgh College of Art, and the Universities of Turin, Venice, and Siena.
Marlene Creates was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2001; in 2019 she received a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for “Lifetime Artistic Achievement.” In 2021 she was named to the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador, and in 2024 she received an Honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from Memorial University.