Marcin Sobolev, a young artist from Belgium, part migratory bird and part kingfisher,has embarked upon a journey into the collective family memory.Hovering and swooping, his work is as poetic as it is faux-naif. Is this utopia or the butterfly effect ?
The great thing about Marcin is his capacity to love birds and cats alike (and above all to love when “all cats are grey”), to fuse tederness with a clutch of familiar objects on which he superimposes shrewd metaphors, to cultivate his outsized, fairytale fruit and pull out the worm – all without advertising the fact, effortlessly, like a child who just decides to grow up.
If you want to unravel Marcin’s creative thread, you must be aware of his inner journey, the need that has gripped him over the last 10 years. You’ll need ti understand his origins, his Polish and Russian roots, which Marcin uses and abuses (even going as far as spelling his name in Cyrillic script) and which are given fresh impetus by stories and confidences shared by his grandmother and followed up on pilgrimages – journeys across the frontiers of the imagination.
Marcin is not one for wild flights of fancy or digital experimentation. He is a cabinetmaker by training and he uses his saw and paintbrush to reclaim the landscapes he has inherited from memory. His use of line – the birch tree, emblematic of poor and often sandy soils – but also his use of stitching – wood and wool, endemic and humble materials, combined with more folkloric elements (colours and pompons) – are a constant thread leading back to traditional know-how, in tandem with a style of writing which is first and foremost visual.
On top of this personal perspective, the artist persists in overlaying “an extra dose of soul”, a fun outer layer, a freshness which is as spontaneous as it is carefully applied (something conspicuous by its absence on the artistic scene at the moment), as if innocence were a muscle that had to be kept in trim.
Marie-Anne Lorgé
- Romantisme
- Une nuit d’hiver
- Résurection
- Nu Pogodi
- Le pigeon 3
- Brussels 2
- Delta
- Bialystok 2
- Protège ton rêve 1
- Cristal Palace
- Wroclaw
- Evdokia
- Vladimir
- Berlin
- Bialystok 3
Exhibitions – Artistic performances
Art Collaboration Kyoto 2023, Kyoto Japon
2022
Luxembourg Art Week, Galerie Louis Gendre, Catalogue
Central Odessa, galerie Cedric Emelinckx, Uccle
Une vie à l’ombre, Salon Art Paris 2019 – Galerie Louis Gendre. Press release, Brochure
Artistic performance for LVMH flagrance
2018
Artistic performance for Christian Dior Paris
Salon FRAMExperience Paris 2018, Marcin Sobolev, Cabinet Double Mafia, galerie Louis Gendre Press release
Galeries Dudelange, Luxembourg
2017
«Un peu de douceur», galerie Louis Gendre.
2016
YIA ART FAIR#7, Le carreau du Temple, Paris. (Press release)
Mori YU Gallery, “Slavsquat”, Kyoto, Japon.
2015
“Cité-Jardin”, Galerie Louis Gendre, Docks Art Fair, International Contemporary Art Fair, Lyon. Solo Show, Prize for Enterprise Initiative for Contemporary Art by CIC – Lyonnaise de banque.
“Dernier métro”, Galerie Louis Gendre, Chamalières.
“CHARABIA Une fois !”, Fiap, Paris
2014
Centre d’art Dominique Lang, Luxembourg
2013
“Fils d’Orphelin”, Galerie Bodson, Bruxelles.
2012
Fresco Installations, Boutique Anne Fontaine, Paris.
Fresco Performances, Agence Tan Dem, Bruxelles.
2011
“Explosition”, Musée d’Ixelles, Bruxelles.
Galerie Russian Tea Room. Calendrier 2011 pour bureau de gestion moscovite.
Fresque Installations, Boutique Anne Fontaine, Bruxelles.
Fresque Installations, Fiap, Paris.
2010
“Nikita”, Galerie Nosbaum & Reding – Art Contemporain, Luxembourg.
Art Brussels Fair. Nosbaum & Reding, Bruxelles.
Installations, Boutique Elvis Pompilio, Bruxelles.
Collective exhibition, Galerie Experimental, Toulouse.
“Ceveriki”, Centre d’Art de Dudelange, Luxembourg.
2009
“Contes Russes”, Collective exhibition, Galerie Russian Tea Room, Paris.
Slick, Foire d’art, Paris.
Slick Dessin, Foire d’art, Paris.
Collective exhibition, PDD, Bruxelles.
Collective exhibition, A7, Bruxelles.
Intervention on an architecture by Gabriel Kowalski, Paris.
Collaboration project with Xavier Lust, Bruxelles.
Collective exhibition, Ancien Musée de Peinture, Grenoble.
2008
Intervention for an architecture by Andrée Putman. Bruxelles.
Installation for “journée Portes Ouvertes” Tandem office, Bruxelles.
Collective exhibition, Galerie Small & Co, Paris.
Galerie Russian Tea Room, Paris.
2007
Espace Art 22, Bruxelles.
Galerie Margalef & Gipponi, Anvers.
White Fair, Bruxelles.
Foyer Ixellois, Bruxelles.
2006
Jean-Luc au Sablon, Bruxelles.
Performances, Louis Vuitton, Bruxelles.
Performance. T. LeClerc. Bruxelles.
2005
Foyer Ixellois, Bruxelles.
Performance, Agence Tandem, Bruxelles.
Galerie du Moment, Bruxelles.
2004
Fresco for Recyclart, Bruxelles.
Atelier d’Artois, Bruxelles.
Décoration for Zinneke Parade. Bruxelles.
Performance, ING, Bruxelles.
MJA, Bruxelles.