“Inner Stellar” is a body of work by Homer artist Marjorie Scholl that explores the themes of trauma and resiliency.

“These paintings honor the experience of reacquainting with one’s ‘inner child’,” Scholl said. “Each portrait illustrates someone in their bright essence, holding the weight of their unique ancestry — hardships, healing, and all — with an authentically determined outlook.”

On display at the Pratt Museum since May and continuing through September, Scholl’s paintings include large individual portraits that showcase community members’ intergenerational life experiences, from children to seniors. The exhibit also includes a series of smaller portraits of people — most who she has not met, but imagined — that she titled “Newcomers.”

Twenty-six paintings, each 3 feet by 3 feet, portray individuals that Scholl personally knows. Each is accompanied by a story that frames the emotion and imagery depicted; everyone showcased actively participated in the creation of their portrait and the associated personal stories. In connecting with her subjects, Scholl spent time interviewing each, listening to their life experiences, which then inspired the many detailed nuances of their particular portrait.

“When I started out, I painted a couple of people I knew I wanted to paint,” she said. “As I painted, other people came to mind. I called them, got their permission to paint them, and then checked in at the end to see if they connected with what I was painting. Not everyone felt good and for those, I shifted the original concept.”

“Baroque in Birch” depicts community member Jacob Chrisman, a local performance artist and entrepreneur who runs a local cheese shop. Depicted in a bedroom appearing to be nestled deep into the woods, Chrisman is sitting on the edge of a bed, wearing a flowing, billowing dress and high-top running shoes and gazing straight out at the viewer. Behind him are bookshelves lined with books and behind those, a forest of birch trees.

“Jacob is at the forefront of setting lifestyle trends and advocating against confining the human spirit,” Scholl said. “I wanted to capture his fascination with Baroque music juxtaposed with his lifestyle of a cabin in the woods and commercial fishing, so different, but complimenting each other.

“When I sat with him over tea, I felt a rush of familiarity and serendipity coursing through our conversation. His story is about being gay and fighting the dress code in school in wanting to wear a dress and fighting and winning and being empowered by that experience. While listening to him reminisce about his childhood triumphs and reveal jagged memories, I realized that his secrets are imbued with grace and righteousness. He’s always in flux between fishing and cheese, fancy dresses and the woods and is very open with his emotion. Jacob is very powerful and his story hasn’t completely unfolded yet.”

In addition to the thread of trauma and resiliency running through each portrait, each is set in a forest of birch trees where light and shadow play an important role.

“Light and shadow allude to the adversities and resilience, as well as loneliness and triumph, that comes from developing the whole self,” Scholl said.

In creating this exhibit, Scholl was inspired to share a story from her own experiences.

“Woods is Her Maiden Name” depicts a young Scholl in the lower left corner, gazing off into the distance. Her mother, Carmen Aelena Woods, stands off in the background in an autumn-hued forest, her eyes looking straight ahead and her arms wide open, wearing a black hat and gloves and a blue scarf tossed around her neck.

“One of the most influential figures in my life, my mom embodies kindness, creativity and spirituality, continuously evolving as a human being,” Scholl said. “I’ve always admired her fortitude in navigating through life’s challenges and her emphasis on connecting the body, mind and heart has profoundly influenced how I navigate the world. I painted this while looking at my own generational trauma, depicting myself at 9 years old because that’s the age that coming into my mind. So in this painting, intended to honor my mom, we’re in the woods together and I’m looking into the distance and she’s looking at me and by my side like she has been my entire life.”

A prelude to this display was Scholl’s exhibit, “Missing Momma,” which debut at a gallery in Oregon in 2021. In that exhibit, 12 smaller pieces showcased deep, emotional portraits intended to portray what life can be like when caregivers are absent and children are left without people to care for them.

“’Missing Momma’ was a bridge to ‘Inner Stellar’,” Scholl said. “That exhibit was full and heavy and someone referred to it as my orphan exhibit. I wanted this exhibit to focus less on trauma and more on resiliency, showing how individuals can rise above pain and work to heal those traumas in order to be there for others, like their kids and their community, as well as themselves. I wanted this to be a celebration of the work those people have done and for these paintings to be sensitive. That’s also why I chose the title, ‘Inner Stellar’, a reference to looking for something star-like.

“Looking for something bright enough that you could go inwards towards your inner child in order to rise above hardships.”

In her painting, “Missing Gabe,” a young boy in a winter jacket is holding a cat to his chest and looking out toward the viewer from the very bottom of the painting. Behind him in the distance is a Pokémon figure set back in a forest of birch trees. The young man in the painting is Casper Von, a friend of Scholl’s family.

“Casper lost his dad when he was just one and a half and this painting is about his story of loss and him as a powerful being from a very young age,” Scholl said. “He is a very quiet kid and I don’t know how he processed this experience, but he never acted like he was burdened and he seems to have come out of it bright and light. The cat is his cat Tonka and the Pokémon figure represents the popular icon of his upbringing and connection with his friend group playing Pokémon cards.

While Scholl’s larger paintings depict real people she knows, many of her smaller paintings, her “Newcomers” series, portray those she has imagined — young and old and in between.

“’Newcomers’ is a collection of portraits that remind us that even when living on this planet for 80 years, we are still young in spirit compared to those that have moved in and out of this lifetime for centuries,” she said. “We are here to face our truths and celebrate one another in relation to each other.”

“Fire Child” portrays a young girl wearing a brown dress and a yellow scarf staring out of the painting as flames surge behind her in the background, one of Scholl’s imaginings of the fires in Ukraine.

“When I was painting this, I was thinking of the war in Ukraine and all the kids having to walk through fire,” she said. “I was also thinking about what I learned from my daughter, that you have to stop what you’re doing — your love, your work, in order to fight for people. Like in Black Lives Matter, she stopped everything and went to protests. I want to help and I’ve been thinking what it means to lay your own self down in order to help people.”

In “Spirit Tracks,” the only painting in the entire exhibit that has no people in it, a set of train tracks leads off into the distance.

“Spirit Tracks” is an example of our spirits moving into this lifetime and our moving out of this lifetime,” Scholl said. “The tracks represent the path in and out of life and that piece includes dark and light spirits coexisting.”

Painted over the course of close to two years, “Inner Stellar” is the latest in Scholl’s body of work since she began painting in high school.

Raised in California, her first art classes were drawing and painting, and portraits captured her imagination immediately. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, she has been evolving creatively.

“I used to want to be in the middle of abstract and realism and now as I’m getting older, I’m trying to be as realistic as I can, playing with loose and tight paint strokes, focusing on gestures with lots of movements in the paint strokes and learning to let go and leave space,” she said.

A painter and dancer, she moved to Homer in 1996 after a friend gifted her a patch from the Salty Dawg Saloon and told her they thought the town would be a perfect fit for her. Today a full-time working artist and an instructional aid at Fireweed Academy, she works until mid-day and then paints and spends time with her husband, Frankie, and their three children.

Scholl’s work can be found all around town. At Fat Olive’s Restaurant, her portraits, cityscapes and landscapes adorn the walls inside. On the outside of the building, facing the Sterling Highway is her mural, “Ode to Old Towne.” Painted in 2014 as part of a mural project created by Lisa Nolan, co-owner of Fat Olives and nearby Bunnell Street Arts Center, the scene shows a young girl flying a kite.

On the wall adjacent the sidewalk where Heath Street meets Pioneer Avenue, Scholl’s mural, “Sharing Spaces, the Homestead” is part of a five-mural project. Commissioned by the Newbys, who own the property, she was inspired to paint how the Indigenous communities had to share their space with the arriving homesteaders.

“I was thinking about the people who were here first and how we all have to share our space,” she said. “I wanted to honor and thank them for sharing their space with us.”

Inside the Homer Medical Clinic, her mural, “Sharing Spaces, Honoring Mothers,” depicts images of hundreds of women, intended to honor the mothers of this community and the Indigenous mothers.

“I want my art to be saying something that’s important,” Scholl said. “That’s why I want to highlight and honor people who are struggling and have chosen to rise above their struggles.”

Currently immersed in commissioned portraits for family and friends, Scholl’s paintings can be found year-round in Homer at Bunnell Street Arts Center and the Pratt Museum and in Anchorage at the Anchorage Museum. Find her online at marjoriescholl.org, and Scholl Studios on Instagram, Facebook and Youtube.

“Inner Stellar” is on display at the Pratt Museum through September, with a First Friday reception on Friday, Sept. 6, 4 to 6 p.m.

“Woods is Her Maiden Name” is an acrylic painting by Marjorie Scholl, on display through September in her exhibit, “Inner Stellar” at the Pratt Musuem in Homer, Alaska. Photo by Chris Kincaid

“Baroque in Birch” is an acrylic painting on canvas by Marjorie Scholl, on display through September in her exhibit, “Inner Stellar” at the Pratt Musuem in Homer, Alaska. Photo by Chris Kincaid

“Newcomers #35 – Fire Child” is an acrylic-on-panel painting by Marjorie Scholl, on display through September in her exhibit, “Inner Stellar” at the Pratt Musuem in Homer, Alaska. Photo by Chris Kincaid