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, NTMarie has been facilitating watercolour painting masterclasses to visitors of the Darwin Art Fair (DAAF) every year from 2012 to date.