Karl Marxhausen - About The Artist

About The
Artist

I am an artist of fifty-six years. My work hangs in private collections in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, New York, South Carolina and England. After studying under Keith Jacobshagen, James Eisentrager, and printmaking under Michael Nushawg at the University of Nebraska, I earned my BFA in 1979.

Personal research into the wood engravings of Fred Geary (1894-1946), the Woodcut Society of Kansas City, and the Kansas City Society of Artists has led me to do my own woodcuts in the Spring of 2011.

             For more on my recent pursuit with relief printing, visit Woodcuts.

          Here is a look back over the years ----
            studio arrangement

             2008.........painting inside my studio .......and outdoors in the summer.

          Acrylic landscapes began in 2001

             Chillicothe Business College classes mural

two stories up above the ground Marxhausen brushes eggshell Latex on exterior wall

         1999 Research and painting mural related to the Chillicothe Business College, in Chillicothe, Missouri
          I received two thousand dollars compensation for this endeavor. Some of it went into the scissor-lift
           equipment rental, gasoline for my 30 mile commute each day to the site, the single color latex paint, and
           the many hours of prior research at the Chillicothe library. Where I learned about this turn-of-the-century
           state-of-the-art training campus, which drew students from all across the United States, South America,
           and several foreign countries. The 100 foot wall already had a nice mural by Marceline painter Steve
           Yarborough. The simple line drawings, painted TEN FOOT TALL, featured the coursework students
           obtained while at school. Because the railroad was so important for delivering mail and goods back then,
           it came to me that Chillicothe was a hub in vital communication skills and commerce. Though I was
           commisioned to complete the approved proposal, the significance of the community was not lost on me.
           As far as I was concerned, the message was the mural was that the school impacted many many communities
           across our nation through its graduates.
             designs approved by Chillicothe Industrial Developement board tells the importance of Telegraph to the rail hub community

designs approved by Chillicothe Industrial Developement board tells the importance of Telegraph to the rail hub community

ten foot tall designs enhance Yarborough's Business College campus

    The mural remained across from the City Hall from 1999 up to 2007.
      The same business commitee that had commissioned me had the wall
           repainted in 2008 with a whole new mural by another artist.

       watercolor study for garden in mural_many studies off books from the local library

watercolor study for garden in mural_many studies off books from the local library

Land Of Opportunity on Lock Steel Building exterior 1998 Carrollton

            A prayer for my city began with research in 1997. Bank Midwest of Kansas City looked at an exterior
    wall proposal for its Carrollton branch. After the design was turned away, my research was put on hold.
    A year later businessman Don Lock of the Lock Steel Corp. requested the design I created be painted
    on his own business in Carrollton. Six hundred dollars worth of oil-based enamel paint and 200 hours
    of labor produced a wide 35 foot panorama 15 feet tall, entitled Land of Opportunity. Ancestors, many
    who were foreign immigrants from other lands, came here to North Central Missouri to build and plant
    their families in 1863.

watercolor study for wagon train

Acrylic color study for travelers in 35 foot mural

          My prayer for our citizenry was for openess to the outsiders who still come to build and plant.
    The street of Washington, which runs past the mural, used to be lined with saloons. Back in the early years,
    it was a rough, unsafe neighborhood to walk through. Just as fresh paint covered the flaws and cracks
    of this beaten up brick site, I could imagine something beautiful and gracious being set upon our community.
    Something with joy and color and song and life bestowed on us by a patient Craftsman.
             In the time since the completion of the mural December of 1998, property valued have risen.
    New businesses have relocated to this city block, including the local Carrollton newspaper, the Time Out
    Grill and Maxine's restaurants to name three.

Commercial illustrations with colored pencils between 1995-1998
Motorcycle illustration at age 41

wide brush in hand for exterior touchup as a 31 year old janitor in Des Moines Iowa 1986

    The willness to work is vital.
     Problem-solving goes a long way. Whether it be emptying wastebaskets, waxing floors,
     scraping propolis off bee racks, delivering hot meals to shut-ins, cutting lawns with a push
     mower, planting iris bulbs for the landlady, or scrubbing toilets for a living. It is the same
     energy that creates art. Getting paid for some kind of labor is what keeps life going.
     Business through art does not happen overnight. It did not happen at all for me. One must work.

    1987. journal entry.allende, mexico

1987 Journal entry
                                                                                             View of Sierra Madrid, Allende, Mexico
                                                                                             ink and colored pencil

   1981 Mark Four Gallery Color Works 1979.Mark Four.solo exhibit.after graduating from UN-L

1979.Mark Four.solo exhibit.after graduating from UN-L

                                                                   24" x 24" paper collage
In my senior year at the University of Lincoln I had four areas of interest:
    painting, etching, paper collage, and ceramics.

close up of textured painting in Mark Four show

   Close up of 36" x 24" painting,                                              15" x 15" oil pastel field on paper in Mark Four show
   textured with sunflower seed shells
     drawing series in Mark Four show

paper collage used to make three color etching

     24" x 18" drawing series                     24" x 18" paper collage used to create three-color etching

       1975.strips hang from ceiling of my dorm room

1975 Bob Winkler was the best room mate at Centennial College at UNL.
Here are paper strips hanging from our dorm room ceiling.
dorm room walls covered with cardboard

   It's true, the basement wall I grew up with was covered with layers of markers, collage,
       with cardboard tubing sticking out. My dad was into paper mache. It was cool. And this
       wall treatment carried over to my dormroom with the admiration of my room mate.
       I would drag empty refrigerator boxes back to our room and make artificial coverings
       that I could draw on and glue dixie cups to and still not deface school property.
       1975 phonebook happening in the Cenennial Commons area

1975 phonebook happening in the Cenennial Commons area

   Interested in the Happening Movement of the 60's and the german conceptual work of Joseph Beuys,
   I found myself in the Centennial Program. Some of my college credits were gained in an atmosphere
       of experimentation. One evening in the Centennial Commons, surrounded by my peers, a dance
       took place. Tearing strips from a phonebook, casting into the air to flutter and twist to the ground.
       My assistant Dan Swinarski illumined the proceedings with a hand-held lamp.

   1976.UNL.happening.string walk

      On another occasion my friends and I staged a block stacking competition
   at one end of the Student Union lounge.

              kodak teenage movie award brochure 1973

      1968 Experiments with Super-8 film beginning with shutter-stop paper shape animation while in 8th grade
As a teenager, I went on to direct local citizens in Decker, a 20 minute short about a card player
                  who is followed by secret agents in brand-new cars, and eludes their chase at the City Dump with
                  help from caped elves and sleight-of-hand magic.
                         At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in the Centennial Program, I continued exploring film.
                  With help from volunteers, I directed a 35 minute flick with a cast of twenty students from my dorm.
                  Those were the days when Monty Python shinanigans were popular. The film's scenario placed
                  an unwitting salesman at the door of customers who already used his products. Each room that
                  his visited in the dorm had its own creative scene. A foosball tournament, a creepy murder,
                  a building climber, a mysterious guest in a wet suit with flippers, someone climbing into the suitcase,
                  yeh, it works, the salesman dies, but the suitcase travels down hallways, the staircase,
                  and into an elevator.
                         Back then film cartridges had to be sent off for developing. Then you had to manually cut, splice,
                  and tape your film together. Select record album music for each scene, record it on a reel-to-reel tape
                  recorder, and make sure the final soundtrack tape started to play at the same time you turned on the
                  film projector (another reel-to-reel machine. Oh, yeah, there was music on the soundtrack for the
                  intermission, during which time I took off the first film reel, threaded the second reel, and turned
                  the projector on, matched to the music. Timing was achieved. Quite a production. Ambitious, yes.
                  It was alot of fun.

                                           teenage movie director

                                                That is the point with this bio page.
         So much good creative energies
         were at work when I was growing up. Falling in love with words, writing,
                      making up my own music on the piano, drawing, walking.
                                             Seasons for art come and go. That has been my life.

        1966 Pencil and marker stories while in grade school.

              penciled action scene at age 12

crayon of giraffe which my father kept for me

               My brother Paul and father Reinhold (BELOW) and me on the right
            outside the igloo we built up on the upper bank of Concordia's football field.
               standing to the right of my brother and father by the igloo we built

standing to the right of my brother and father by the igloo we built

   Dad took the time to walk with his sons.
           Sunday afternoons we walked along abandoned railroad tracks, the brickyard, by Plum Creek,
           crunching through snow, finding dirt piles to climb, out in the sun, out in nature........... to explore
           the outdoors. You can read an account from Dad's journal here.

        this is the playtime I remember, mixing mud and sand, pretending they were chemicals, making forts, and imagining. This is what an artist does.

this is the playtime I remember, mixing mud and sand, pretending they were chemicals, making forts, and imagining. This is what an artist does.

this was posed by my father, Reinhold Marxhausen.

       A father's hope: that his toddler son would one day be an artist too.         My father posed me for this shot.

      I was born with clubbed feet. An operation at 10 months old formed heels on my pointed limbs. I wore casts and a shoe brace.
      My pediatrist told me once that back in1955 there was a 50 - 50 chance of the surgery being successful.
      Had things gone differently I could have been crippled for life. A further thought about this, here.

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