Marcia Festen

b. 1963, Chicago, IL

Marcia Festen is a Chicago-based abstract painter whose work explores change as both subject and process. Drawing loosely from organic systems, she creates images that remain deliberately unresolved, resisting fixed interpretation in favor of a more active and shifting experience of looking. Her compositions suggest cellular structures, branching networks, growth, erosion, and atmospheric movement without settling into literal representation. The result is a visual language that feels at once biological and psychological, balancing spontaneity with sustained attention.

Festen works primarily on translucent Dura-Lar, a flexible film more commonly associated with architectural drafting. Across its surface, she builds layers of ink, powdered pigment, colored pencil, oil stick, and other media through pouring, staining, drawing, and revision. Her tools range from traditional brushes to household implements and objects found in nature. The unusual support allows color, line, and gesture to accumulate while preserving luminosity, giving even her large-scale works a sense of openness, depth, and continual movement.

Alongside her studio practice, Festen has spent more than three decades as a leader in Chicago’s nonprofit and philanthropic community. She served as Director of the Arts Work Fund for Organizational Development from 2006 to 2026 and previously worked as a Senior Program Officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She retired from her position as Executive Director of the McDougal Family Foundation to focus full time on her art career. This commitment to making art and supporting cultural organizations places Festen firmly within the broader ecology of Chicago’s creative community.