A painter on the north coast.
About · Wrenhaven
Odile Marrow paints in oil from a studio above the harbor. She has shown with galleries on the coast and inland since 2022.
I grew up inland and saw the sea for the first time at nineteen. I have been trying to paint it ever since.
I studied painting for three years and then worked in a frame shop for five, which taught me more about pictures than school did. In 2021 I rented the top floor of an old net loft on the harbor at Wrenhaven, and I have painted there every day since.
I paint the coast in winter, the marsh in the fall, and the table by the north window when it rains. Most of my paintings start outside, as small boards, and are finished in the studio the same day.
I show with North Quay Gallery and Harrow Street Gallery, take a few commissions each year, and teach two summer workshops in the loft.
On painting
I paint what the weather does to a place, and then I take half of it away. A painting is finished when there is nothing left to remove. Most days that takes longer than the painting did. Some days the best brush in the studio is the rag.
Three habits at the easel.
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01
Look longer than you paint
I spend the first hour of every painting just looking. No brush in my hand. It is the cheapest hour of the day and the one that saves the most paint.
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02
Start outside, finish inside
A small board on site gives me the true colors. The canvas in the studio gives me time. I need both, and on the same day.
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03
Stop one stroke early
The last stroke is almost always one too many. When I think I need one more, I clean the brushes and come back the next morning.
Twelve years with a brush.
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2014
Art school, inland
Three years of drawing plaster casts and one teacher who said to paint less and look more.
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2017
The frame shop
Five years cutting mats and joining frames, and looking closely at other people's paintings every day.
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2021
The net loft
Rented the top floor of an old fishing shed on the harbor at Wrenhaven. Painted the wood above the town.
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2022
First show
The Old Wood at Wrenhaven Arts Center. All three paintings sold.
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2023
Mountain residency
Three weeks above the tree line with the Fellside Museum of Art.
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2025
Coastal Painting Prize
Won at the Fellside Open for Moon Study, Low Tide.
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2026
Storm Coast
Five storm paintings at North Quay Gallery, and a catalog of four years of work.
What lives in the studio.
Materials, drawer by drawer-
Case 01
Paint box
5 items- Titanium white Bought by the big tube
- Ultramarine blue Every gray starts here
- Burnt sienna Warms the grays
- Yellow ochre For sand and skin
- Alizarin crimson For roses and dusk
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Case 02
Brush jar
4 items- Hog bristle filberts Sizes 8 to 14
- Sable rounds For petals and rigging
- Palette knife Long trowel, for foam
- One soft rag The best brush I own
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Case 03
Field bag
3 items- Pochade box Holds six colors and a board
- Primed boards 18 × 24 cm, a dozen at a time
- Rubber boots For the marsh
What the papers said.
Reviews, 2022 to 2026-
5 out of 5 stars
You can hear these paintings.
Storm Coast is loud in the best way. Stand in front of No. 1 and you will reach for your coat.
The Coastal Review Paul Ferrand -
4.5 out of 5 stars
The best nocturnes in years.
She paints the dark as carefully as the light, which almost nobody does.
Northern Arts Weekly Jo Amberley -
4 out of 5 stars
You want to take a peach.
Table Pieces is the most generous still life show I have seen this year.
Harbor Times Clem Dacre -
4.5 out of 5 stars
Half the town went to the marsh.
Marsh Light made us look again at a place we walk past every day.
Wrenhaven Courier Ruth Abernathy -
4 out of 5 stars
She already knows when to stop.
A first show with no wasted canvas in it.
Fellside Post Owen Strand
Where the work hangs.
Exhibitions, coming and past-
Open Studio Weekend
New small panels and prints
The Net Loft Wrenhaven
Free entry -
Winter Open
Group show, two paintings
Fellside Museum of Art Fellside
Free entry -
Tide and Table
Solo show, four years of work
Lantern House Gallery Port Ellery
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Cut Flowers
Solo show
Harrow Street Gallery Port Ellery
Past -
Storm Coast
Solo show
North Quay Gallery Wrenhaven
Past -
Moon Studies
Solo show
Lantern House Gallery Port Ellery
Past
Galleries and collections.
08 names · 2022 to 2026- North Quay Gallery
- Harrow Street Gallery
- Lantern House Gallery
- Fellside Museum of Art
- Wrenhaven Arts Center
- The Corbel Hotel
- Port Ellery Library
- Coldharbor Farm