The headlining work of Dan Marsula’s upcoming exhibition is Gray Day (2025), a painting that captures what might otherwise go unnoticed. “In solitude on a gray day,” Marsula explains, “I tried to capture the quiet shifts of color in the muted light. Without the sun’s brightness, the world revealed its subtler tones—the pale blues hidden in the clouds, the soft browns, the faint green that lingered in the grass. What first seemed monochromatic slowly displayed a quiet richness, a reminder that beauty often hides in restraint.” It is a fitting introduction to an artist who has spent more than four decades attentive to the quiet, the overlooked, and the ordinary transformed by light.
When asked why he paints, Pittsburgh-based artist Dan Marsula remembers the unflinching honesty of his grandson, who at age seven looked at him and asked, “Why do you do this?” It was the kind of question that strips away pretense and requires a deeper truth. Marsula’s answer, after a long pause, was as simple as it was profound: “It chose me. I didn’t choose it.”
That spark has guided him and his wife, Sue, for more than forty-five years—through the challenges of raising four children, through his decades-long career as an illustrator for the Pittsburgh Press and Post-Gazette, and through countless hours in the studio, where quiet solitude is as essential a medium as paint.
That spark has guided him for more than forty-five years—through the chaos of raising four children, through a decades-long career as an illustrator for the Pittsburgh Press and Post-Gazette, and through countless hours in the studio, where quiet solitude is as essential a medium as paint. His canvases invite viewers to enter that same silence, to find a moment of calm in an otherwise noisy world.
From Westmoreland to Pittsburgh
Marsula grew up in Westmoreland County, a short walk from the historic Bushy Run Battlefield. His earliest artistic education came not from formal instruction but from the simple encouragement of his parents and twin brother. His father, who worked in manufacturing, would bring home discarded rolls of canvas, and young Dan and his brother would cut, stretch, and paint them into their first works.
By grade school, the talent was evident, reinforced by teachers and neighbors who marveled at his drawings. Trips into Pittsburgh exposed him to the grit and atmosphere of the steel mills, a world he would later capture in paintings of industrial strength and dignity. But it was the Westmoreland Museum of American Art that gave him his first taste of what art could mean: a quiet sanctuary, a place to dwell on light, shadow, and silence.
That early love of solitude has never left his work. “When people see my paintings,” Marsula says, “I want them to feel the same relaxed, comfortable quiet that I felt standing in front of those works as a teenager.”
A Career in Illustration
Like many working artists, Marsula supported his studio practice through commercial illustration. After graduating from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 1976, he took a position at the Pittsburgh Press, later moving to the Post-Gazette. There he honed his craft in the newsroom, producing everything from advertising layouts to editorial illustrations.
He recalls with gratitude a president of the Art Institute who warned him never to stay too long in one place. And yet Marsula’s choice to remain in Pittsburgh proved wise; as the city’s advertising agencies dwindled, he adapted, combining the technical discipline of illustration with the expressive demands of fine art. At home, his children would often sit on his lap as he painted watercolors, absorbing the rhythm of his dedication.
“The painting part of me,” he says, “was there long before art school. Illustration paid the bills. But painting—that was my soul.”
The Pull of Pennsylvania
For more than thirty years, Marsula has painted the hills, mills, and neighborhoods of Western Pennsylvania. His subject matter may vary—from rural landscapes to industrial structures to quiet scenes of daily life—but the through-line is light.
“You paint what you know,” he explains. “And what I know is Pittsburgh. What I love is how it changes. Seasons, weather, time of day—it’s never the same twice. Fall especially, with that low sun and golden light. That’s what keeps me coming back.”
One of his striking industrial works, Rails of Gold, captures the Edgar Thomson Works in North Braddock at a rare, glowing moment. The rails gleam as if illuminated from within, a vision he encountered only once despite many return visits. Around them rise the mills, a reminder of Pittsburgh’s industrial past and living heritage. For Marsula, the mills are more than architecture — they are part of his family story, part of the region’s collective memory. “When they’re gone,” he reflects, “you miss them. They’re like the uncle with the stinky cigars at Thanksgiving—you might not like the smoke, but he’s family. You can’t escape it.”
Alongside the mills, Marsula finds drama in the city’s most familiar neighborhoods. In South Side High Rise, a narrow street on the South Side Slopes becomes what he calls “Pittsburgh’s canyon” — steep, crowded, and lined with houses that climb upward like mountain goats. The canvas elevates an ordinary street into a scene of quiet monumentality, sunlight striking a single facade at the end of the row like a spotlight. For Marsula, these places are more than architectural studies; they carry the memory of the men who once trudged home from the mills, lunch buckets in hand, covered in soot. “That’s the character of Pittsburgh that I like,” he says. “It’s just interesting.”
A Lineage of Influence
Marsula’s work sits within a lineage of American painters who found transcendence in the ordinary. He first immersed himself in watercolor, drawn to the evocative realism of Andrew Wyeth, whose quiet interiors and landscapes echoed Marsula’s own love of solitude. Wyeth’s father, N.C. Wyeth, with his dramatic illustrations, also resonated deeply, bridging Dan’s dual identities as illustrator and fine artist.
Later, as he moved fully into oils, Marsula discovered the power of the Pennsylvania Impressionists, particularly Edward Redfield of Bucks County. Redfield’s bold, one-take canvases—painted en plein air, often in the snow—astounded him. “To do a fifty-inch canvas in one sitting outdoors… that’s unbelievable,” Marsula says. “But it reminds me that artists have always pushed themselves. It makes me want to push myself.”
He also cites Frederic Remington, who produced over 3,000 works before dying in his forties. “When I think about that level of output,” Marsula reflects, “I realize I’ve got a long way to go.”
These artists, though wildly different in approach, each embodied a tireless drive to create—something Marsula recognizes in himself.
Toward Quiet Spaces
Though his style shifts—from chameleon-like illustration to the looser brushwork of oils—Marsula’s paintings all return to what he calls “quiet spaces.” These are not scenes of royalty or grand spectacle, but of daily life: a winding road, a sunlit field, the familiar geometry of a Dairy Queen rendered with almost Hopper-like strength.
Perhaps the most personal of these works is Father and Son, painted more than fifteen years ago. At first, it was simply an experiment in nocturnes, inspired by a Frederic Remington exhibition and a lonely farm along Route 51. But as the work took shape—moonlight replacing daylight, a single illuminated window breaking the darkness—it revealed something deeper. At the time, Marsula’s father was in a nursing home following a stroke, caught between moments of recognition and unknowing. The painting, with its large farmhouse and smaller outbuilding, became an unconscious meditation on that relationship: the elder fading, the younger holding on, a final light before darkness.
“It didn’t start with meaning,” he reflects, “but when I finished, I realized it was about that time in my life. I didn’t even know I was doing it.”
In Father and Son, atmosphere and memory merge. It is not only a landscape but a meditation on loss, where light transforms sorrow into stillness.
On September 20, 2025, Mark Rengers Gallery will open Marsula’s first major exhibition in over a decade. The show, fittingly titled Quiet Spaces, will gather new oils alongside Western Pennsylvania landscapes, industrial studies, and scenes drawn from his travels.
While the works vary in subject, the unifying theme is light and shadow—the orchestration of atmosphere across diverse places and objects. “Shapes and shadows,” he says simply, “that’s what it comes down to.”
Marsula admits he still feels nervous before beginning a large canvas. But that nervousness is part of what drives him forward. “Your next painting is always your best painting,” he explains. “You can never be finished. If you’re satisfied, you’re done. And I’m not done.”
An Invitation to Pause
As Marsula reflects on his career, he remains quick to critique his own work—never fully satisfied, always pushing. But perhaps that is what keeps the paintings alive. Each brushstroke is part of a lifelong conversation between artist, subject, and viewer.
For those who step into the gallery this fall, his work offers an invitation: to pause, to see, to find in the familiar the possibility of wonder. In Gray Day, as in so many of his paintings, the lesson is simple but profound: beauty is rarely loud, often fragile, and always worth noticing.
In Marsula’s words: “Looking at daily life is artwork in itself. We just don’t see it, because we’re not looking for it.”
Credits & Resources
All paintings and descriptions courtesy of Dan Marsula.
Interview and narrative written by Mark Rengers, for Mark Rengers Gallery.
Exhibition photography and documentation will be available through the gallery website following the opening.
With heartfelt gratitude to Sue Marsula, whose unwavering support—right down to the quiet patience of waiting in the car while Dan searches for just the right light—has been an essential part of his artistic journey.
For further exploration of artists who have influenced Marsula’s practice, see:
Andrew Wyeth and N.C. Wyeth – Brandywine River Museum of Art
Edward Redfield and the Pennsylvania Impressionists – James A. Michener Art Museum
Frederic Remington – Frederic Remington Art Museum
Special thanks to the Marsula family for their support and to the Sewickley community for continuing to champion the arts.
Such insight into the beauty of the mundane. Excellent!
I’m looking forward to enjoying Marsula’s work. I read with avid interest this interview with the artist. Learning about his life and his background, provide an artful glimpse into his motivation to continue his journey as a painter.