Wells, you're hard pressed to find a home without a Marie Nagel painting on the walls.

From August 20th to September 13th, 2026, Island Mountain Arts will host over 30 works from private collections around the Cariboo Region. You’ll notice that even this catalogue pays hommage to Marie’s work to publish the Wells Community News, a monthly hard-copy newsletter that talked about all things Wells from the mid 1990s through the early 2000's.

Island Mountain Arts would like to thank Dennis Hawkins-Bogle, Cheryl Macarthy and Dave Jorgenson, Leanne Davies, Amy Dash, Veronica Brown, Kara Haack, Andy Townsley, Wylie Bystedt, Dorothea Funk, Linda Turner, Carrie Johnston, Mia Cirotto, Heather Grady, Anne Oliver, Linda Rummel, Danette Boucher, Kathy Landry, Claire Kujundzic (from the private collection of Anne Oliver), and Bob Campbell for loaning us artwork from their private collections.

We’d also like to thank Bill Horne and Amazing Space, who are generously donating proceeds from the “Buckley’s” T-shirt sales to Island Mountain Arts to offset our gallery costs.

Finally, we extend our endless gratitude to Marie’s son Jeff Nagel, for his blessing to bring this show to life, and for the incredible calendars gifted to our organization so that donors to this show may take home a bit of Marie with them.

It is our absolute honour to uphold Marie’s legacy as an artist and an immense contributor to the community of Wells.

About the Artist

Marie Nagel (1938 - 2025) was a BC Artist. Born in Saskatchewan, she attended the Alberta College of Art in the 1960s, and had been a newspaper photographer, cartoonist and illustrator before heading the Prince George Art Gallery in the mid 1980s.

In the early 1990s she moved to the tiny B.C. town of Wells, opened her own gallery and plunged into painting full time. She never looked back and became part of the fabric of the community, publishing a local newspaper in Wells for a decade.

Her Wells painting period from 1991-2007 was marked by vibrant semi-abstract acrylics on canvas, often depicting the mountains, forests and collapsing old buildings of the Cariboo landscape. The bold colours and brush strokes were a major departure from her watercolours of the 1980s.

In 2007, she moved to Victoria, where seascapes and driftwood became frequent subjects.

"There is an elemental quality to her landscapes, as well as a deft colour sense and a lush moodiness that evokes the West Coast,” Boulevard Magazine wrote on the eve of an exhibition in Victoria. “Without trying to, her works stand out."

Above all, she is remembered fondly by her many friends, family and fellow art lovers as a kind friend and a wonderful mother.

She passed away Dec. 15, 2025 at the age of 87 in White Rock, with her son Jeff nearby.