Marion Artense Gély

About

Marion Artense Gély next to her totem Axis Mundi II
With Axis Mundi II, 2024.

Biography

Born in 1995, Marion Artense Gély is a painter and ceramicist. She lives and works in Paris. She graduated from the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (ENSAPC) in 2020 and has been in residence at Poush since 2020.

An explorer of elements, Marion Artense Gély directs her gaze into the intricacies of the infinitely small and the expanses of the infinitely large, searching for the essence that animates the world. Through the ancient techniques of glazing and sfumato, she confronts the artifices of appearance to unearth the layers of a forgotten memory. Her work blossoms at the intersection of painting, ceramics and installation, each medium becoming a receptacle, a guardian of light, in a narrative that seems to arise from a timeless dialogue between dawn and dusk.

Her works have been exhibited in France and internationally, notably at Galerie Myriam Chair, Galerie May and Galerie Dumonteil (Paris, 2024). In 2024, eight of her paintings were acquired by the Orient Express La Minerva hotel in Rome, for its reopening under the direction of architect and designer Hugo Toro. Her work was also shown at Galerie Dauphine (Paris, 2024), in the exhibition Tactile at Chapelle XIV (Paris, 2025) and at Art Paris (Grand Palais, 2026) with Galerie Sailly.

CV

Education

  • 2020–2021Art history, archaeology track, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
  • 2018–2020DNSEP (2020), École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (ENSAPC)
  • 2019Training in decorative painting, “oil technique, ceiling skies”, École Jean Sablé, Versailles
  • 2017International exchange programme, ENPEG, Mexico City
  • 2016–2018DNAP (2018), École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (ENSAPC)

Solo exhibitions

  • 2026What remains of a day, La Chapelle Saint-Antoine, Naxos, Greece
  • 2025Constellations, Keraforma Gallery, Shanghai, China
  • 2024La grange de May — Maison&Objet in the City, Galerie May, Paris
  • 2023–2024La Quête des Lucioles, Galerie Myriam Chair, Paris
  • 2022The voice between the Human and the Rock, La Chapelle Saint-Antoine, Naxos, Greece
  • 2020Moonburn & Altar, ENSAPC, Cergy, France

Group exhibitions

  • 2026Art Paris — Promises sector, with Galerie Manon Sailly, Grand Palais, Paris
  • 2026Matières à penser, Galerie Manon Sailly, Paris
  • 2025Raisonnance, curated by Marion Guggenheim, Hauvette & Madani, Paris
  • 2025Tactile — with Denis Macrez, Chapelle XIV, Paris
  • 2024Vertige, Galerie Dumonteil, Paris
  • 2024Quand la chrysalide s’éveille, Galerie Dauphine, Fondation Brownstone, Paris
  • 2024Darmo Art Prize — finalist, Darmo, Paris
  • 2024Femmes Artistes, Artwins, Paris
  • 2024Une Ère de repos, Adjacent Gallery, Paris
  • 2024Carte Blanche, Galerie Incuntra, Boulogne-Billancourt
  • 2023La couleur des Ténèbres, 3537, Paris
  • 2023Expositions, Egregore Gallery, La Réunion, France
  • 2023Déséquilibre, Aya Partners, Paris
  • 2022Terre, Art House by Kalo, Paris
  • 2022Global Pool Club, Poush Manifesto, Paris
  • 2022Sweet Dreams are made of this, Poush Manifesto, Paris
  • 2021The Ripple Project, Galerie Confort Mental, Paris
  • 2021Miniatures, Galerie Confort Mental, Paris
  • 2021Joie de Vivre, Galerie Bertrand Grimont, Paris
  • 2021Beatus, Poush Manifesto, Paris
  • 2019XVIII, Galerie Ygrec, Paris

Awards

  • 2024Darmo Art Prize, Paris — finalist

Residencies

  • 2024–2025Taoxichuan Ceramic Residency Program, Taoxichuan Art Center, Jingdezhen, China
  • 2022La Chapelle Saint-Antoine, Naxos, Greece
  • since 2020Poush, Clichy then Aubervilliers

Curating

  • 2023Les ruines du Temps, Poush Manifesto 2, Paris
  • 2022Sweet Dreams are made of this, Poush Manifesto 1, Paris
  • 2021Pharmakon, Poush Manifesto 1, Paris

Collections

  • 2025Highstay Apartment & Villa, Paris
  • 2024Palazzo della Minerva, Orient Express, Rome — eight paintings, under the direction of architect Hugo Toro
  • 2023Casa Franca — Sarah Valente, Paris

Teaching and mediation

  • 2021Artistic and cultural mediation, Fabrice Hyber, L’Artère at La Villette, Le Jardin des Dessins, Pantin
  • 2018Programming and coordinating art and culture workshops with unaccompanied minors, in partnership with the Palais de Tokyo, Timmy and ENSAPC

Press

  • 2024Travel Book, Relais & Châteaux, October 2024
  • 2023“Architecture Green”, Ideat, special issue, November 2023
  • 2023“L’œil de Technikart”, Technikart, February 2023
  • 2023“Le goût de l’audace”, Elle Décoration, special issue, January 2023
Oil and ink study for La Minerva
Study for La Minerva (Istanbul), 2024.

Artist statement

My pictorial work consists largely of delving my gaze into the intricacies of the infinitely small and the expanses of the infinitely large, in search of the essence that animates the world.

By reclaiming the pictorial techniques of the great masters of the Italian Renaissance whom I admire, such as Caravaggio and his particular chiaroscuro, Tiepolo and the atmospheric depth of his skies, or Leonardo da Vinci for the sfumato and glazes that give life to flesh and depth to landscapes, I explore a pictorial language largely oriented towards abstraction. Ethereal skies, indefinite motifs and blurred contours are at the heart of my research.

Guided by the British painters of the 18th and 19th centuries who sought to convey the impact of human activity on landscapes, I interrogate the contours of a history forever repeated: that of a dialogue in which dawn and dusk merge in an apparently irrevocable dynamic, perfectly captured by the American tonalists Inness and Whistler, from whom I draw inspiration.

Each painting is composed of overlapping layers (between 90 and 150), akin to geological strata one would uncover in a process executed in reverse. Each brushstroke is an act of remembrance, a dialogue with bygone eras, shaping a narrative that would unveil the outlines of a trace, a mark, or the evidence of a forgotten event.

The long drying times required between each layer of paint have allowed me to explore the art of ceramics. The repeated artisanal gestures on clay and the chemical knowledge of glaze work are another means of pursuing this alchemical quest for what lies behind appearances. Thus my sculptural and pictorial works merge, respond to each other and nourish each other. This intersection of science, technique and the repetition of gesture, which I admire in the Renaissance artist Bernard Palissy, represents for me the quintessential meditative act.