Marie is the daughter of Arthur and Katie (nee Uburtja) Abbott. She grew up in Ntaria (The Hermannsburg mission). Her brother the late Clem Abbott was a highly respected watercolourist from the Hermannsburg School of art. 

In her earlier work Marie was strongly influenced by landscape paintings from the Hermannsburg School of Art.  Her brother suggested that she should paint in her own style. She then had some years of experimentation; as an established artist she mastered both watercolour and acrylic techniques. In the years 1993 to 1996 Marie developed a naturalistic style of landscapes using acrylic paints. She also focused on painting birds of the region in her landscapes. Since 1996 the subject of her work has been illustrating bush foods and women’s gathering, using symbolic designs and dot painting. Since 2007 Marie joined the art centre and begun to paint landscapes of the Hermannsburg tradition once again, alongside artists from the watercolour movement.

Marie painted a large mural at the Aboriginal Birthing Centre in Alice Springs. She is a registered Aboriginal Health worker and studied Aboriginal Health at Batchelor College. From 2012 and through to 2017 Marie has been representing the art centre and facilitating watercolour painting masterclasses to visitors of the Darwin Art Fair (DAAF). Marie is currently studying art at the Batchelor institute and now lives in Palmerston, NT

EXHIBITIONS:

• 2004 Advocate Central Australian Art Award
• 2005 Desert Mob Exhibition, Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs, NT
• 2009 Desert Mob Exhibition, Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs, NT
• 2009 Real to Surreal, Scenes from the Centre: Journey with the New Generation of Hermannsburg Watercolour Artists, Tandanya, Adelaide, SA
• 2009 Beyond Batterby, Recent Watercolour by Central Australian Artists, Hobart, TAS
• 2009 The Watercolourists of Central Australia, Indigenart, Melbourne, VIC
• 2012 The Lockup, Newcastle, NSW
• 2012 Regional Art Gallery, Burnie, TAS
• 2012 Art Mob, Launceston, TAS
• 2012 Art Mob, Hobart, TAS
• 2012 Frankston Arts Centre, Frankston, VIC
• 2012 Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide, SA
• 2012 Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, QLD
• 2014 Women Artists of the Hermannsburg School of Art, The Residency, Alice Springs, NT
• 2015 Hermannsburg Horizons, Wooloongabba Art Gallery, Brisbane, QLD
• 2016 Birds + Us, Finalist at the 20 year anniversary exhibition, Melbourne VIC 

Special projects

• 2012 – 2017 Facilitator of watercolour painting masterclasses to visitors of the Darwin Art Fair (DAAF)

Group exhibitions

• 2019
  Tjina Nurna-ka, Pmarra Nurn-kanha, Itla Itla Nurn-kanha (Our family, our country, our legacy), Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide SA
• 2019
  Pmarra Nurna-Kananhala untha-lapp-urma (Walking through country), Hazelhurst Art centre, Sydney, NSW.
• 2017
  Tjuritja Nana Mara to Paris (From the good Tjuritja to Paris), IDAIA , Paris , France

Collections

• 2017 Queensland Art Gallery Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, QLD