MarlenE YU

Eco-Art Pioneer. Monumental Painter. Museum Founder.

Marlene Tseng Yu (born as Nakagawa Fumiko in 1937, and later as Yu Tseng Fu Mei) is a Taiwanese-American artist recognized for her mural-sized, nature-inspired, abstract expressionist paintings. Named in ARTnews as “a pioneer in the ‘green’ movement in visual arts,” Yu has worked to connect nature-focused artists worldwide since the 1970s.

For over sixty years, long before “activist art” became a genre, Yu has encouraged awareness and appreciation of nature using multi-dualistic visual language: bridging Chinese landscape traditions and American abstract expressionism, blending physical and emotional subjects, and inviting multiple points of view. Her ancient-to-modern synthesis embraces negative space, yin-yang balance, painterly skill, and sweeping brushstrokes in bold colors on monumental canvases—up to 54 feet in length or 22 feet high. Across 35+ Forces of Nature series (including Glacier Melting, Forest Fire, Avalanche, and Crystal Reef), her works depict the “rhythm and movement of moods” in nature, working on a “dreamy borderline” between realism and abstraction. White spaces within her compositions often represent clouds, foam, bubbles, ice, coral, or stalactites, inviting aerial, immersive, or microscopic perspectives.

Yu moved to the United States in 1963, worked in SoHo for 38 years, and opened her studio in Long Island City in 2008. She holds a BFA from National Taiwan Normal University (1960) and an MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder (1967), later serving on the latter’s Fine Arts Advisory Committee (from 1994). She taught in Taiwan and at Denver University (1967–1968).

She began curating in the 1990s and, in 2001, officially formed the Rainforest Art Foundation, which inspired branches in Zurich, Brussels, Vienna, and Frankfurt. In 2013, the Marlene Yu Museum was built in Shreveport, Louisiana (opened 2014) to preserve and present her life’s work. Now opening in New York City, the Museum continues Yu’s vision as both an institution and a movement: a call to experience the power of nature through the shared language of art. Its programs include group and solo exhibitions, performances, children’s programs, and collaborations across fields such as science, architecture, fashion, literature, and outdoor adventures, all highlighting the interconnectedness of people, nature, and creativity.

Her work has been featured in nine languages and more than 300 publications, including ARTFORUM, Art in America, artnet, and on Barbara Walters’ Today Show. Yu has presented over 80 solo exhibitions across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and participated in numerous international group shows. Her oeuvre numbers 6,000+ works, with 1,000+ in public and private collections. Selected collections include the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts; Today Art Museum (Beijing); Shanghai Art Museum; National Gallery in Prague; Springfield Museums (MA); Las Vegas Art Museum (NV); Godwin-Ternbach Museum and QCC Art Museum (NY); as well as corporate holdings including Chase Manhattan Bank and Pfizer. Honors include the ARTV “Muse” Fine Arts Award (Muralist) in Las Vegas, along with recognition in New York City and State, the U.S., and Taiwan.

Yu’s Dream Series (1984–1986) is more representational, placing the female body in dreamscapes with animals such as wolf, snake, bull, swan, and unicorn. It opens a dialogue between femininity and masculinity, nature and humanity, dream and reality.