About Marlyse
“Art bridges my love of nature, people, spirituality, dreamlike states and beautiful colour. As I float freely between worlds, I reveal the journey of my heart and bring a little magic to the mundane.”
I wrote these words many years ago, yet they still ring true for me today.
I’m a self-taught artist, born in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. In 1971, I moved to Australia—a vast country that captivated me from the moment I arrived.
The light, the space, the immense skies, the wildlife, the sound of magpies warbling… all of it amazed me.
That date may reveal that I’m now an old lady – but I remain young at heart and endlessly enthusiastic about creativity in all its forms: relationships, our little Teeka, good food, dancing, gardening and, of course, painting.
In one form or another, art has always accompanied me throughout a busy and varied professional life. My career evolved from fashion design, under my Marlyse of Switzerland label, to co-founding the Inner Peace Institute for Wellbeing, where I taught meditation, spirituality and wellbeing from 1995 to 2012.
I’m also the author of the bestselling book Am I Going Mad? The Unsettling Phenomena of Spiritual Evolution, published by Inner Peace Publishing in 2007.
Now retired, I’m fortunate to live and breathe art every day, working from my home studio on Victoria’s beautiful Bellarine Peninsula.
As my galleries and selected exhibitions reveal, I’ve been a productive artist. Still am. And my work is now represented in private collections throughout Australia and overseas.
Although my interests are broad and my practice continues to evolve, one thing remains constant: I paint to discover, not to illustrate.
Each painting begins with curiosity rather than certainty. Through intuitive layers of colour, texture and mark-making, I allow the work to reveal its own direction. It is often within the unexpected that a painting truly comes alive.