Arte Laguna biography
My name is Marius Melissas, born in Antwerp (°1999). I recently finished higher education having completed a BA in interior architecture at the University of Antwerp and an MA in design through new materials at Elisava. I am looking to launch my artistic journey, having had my first solo exhibition ‘Bio Pigments atelier’ last month. I showcased a group of regenerative and fully biological paintings made with micro-algae pigments. I am looking for opportunities to expand and find support socially as well as financially, as I will explain. That is why I believe Arte Laguna can provide me with great opportunities.
I am an artist looking to change the paradigm of contemporary art and I want to try doing so through the regenerative creation of art. Bio Pigments atelier is my first project revolving around the sustainable and regenerative creation of art using bio pigments. The first works I have made are created with micro-algae pigments, mixed with two distinct techniques that incorporate the idea of being sustainable in the whole process. One is an ancient beeswax technique and the other technique is with an agar-agar medium. The purpose of this is to open up a conversation in the art world and to inspire others to do the same.
This story goes back a long way. I have always had a very strong link with nature since my childhood. Natural environments have always been essential in supporting my well-being and without them I would be completely lost. It is what gives me the ability to release and reconnect to myself, giving me life in the spiritual and physical sense. Art came into my life during adolescence and I quickly made a link between the two due to the inherent connection that exists between art and nature. Abstract expressionists for me really capture the raw energy of what nature is or the primordial energy in what you see when you look at prehistoric art. It is their approach to this uninhibited energetical style of painting that really captivated me during my adolescence and further propelled my interest in art.
After high school, I decided to go on a gap year to decide whether I would go for a life where I would work to improve climate change or whether it would be in the creative fields of life. During this gap year, I went to Borneo to work in the jungle and after that picked up art classes in Firenze. My experience in Borneo was transformative for me. Seeing pristine rainforests being cut down one after another as if it was a factory right next to you after having spent a whole day counting trees and monitoring them just to try to save 20 or so trees, changed me. Living and seeing the beauty of the jungle alongside the destruction of it really made me decide that I should put down my ambitions in the creative fields and devote myself to ecology.
Following that idea, I went on to study a BA at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in Earth and Economics. This study gave me a broad view on how to manage climate change, the urgency of change and the main systems around which our planet functions. However, after a few months, I realized this wasn’t my thing. Economics and science interest me but I am not cut out for these fields; sadly enough I don’t have any mathematical capacities or the rational way of thinking you need to be able to work in these fields.
As such I decided to go in the creative direction and do interior architecture, because I thought that improving living conditions with the right materials could have a great impact on our planet as well. I initially wanted to go for painting but my parents weren’t very fond of this decision, and due to an unstable home situation I didn’t want to go into conflict with my parents. I decided to stick to my choice. I quite enjoyed it but still, it wasn’t what I really wanted. Throughout my BA I noticed it was more the design than the materials that took my attention and were the main focus of my projects. For my MA, I decided to go and study new materials in Barcelona because I felt that this could maybe push me in the direction I wanted to go in and show my parents that I am able to create artistic work. That is exactly what happened and now here I am, having finished my master, and trying to find opportunities to develop my project.
The main issue when creating artistic work in a regenerative way is that the investment cost is very high. You’re working with materials that aren’t commercially available and are all very scarce so automatically quite expensive. When working with natural elements nothing is a one plus one equals two situation. It’s a lot of trial and error and testing out what will work so your research phase isn’t just ‘Here I go buying a little acrylic and let’s develop my personal artistic style.’ No, it revolves around research and rather than simply buying these finite sources from a store, pushing yourself, and experimenting with materials that are renewable and regenerative. I view it as a mission and my personal fight. Succeeding in something that looks impossible and completely ridiculous in the eyes of others pushes me to continue and really put it out there to show others that it is possible to succeed even if you try to take the hard route.
I am convinced the time has come for the contemporary art scene to invest in ecological creation. For me, art always carries within itself a message or purpose, hidden or plain, to its audience. Other than political institutions or large corporations, I believe it is art that truly has the power to change things and people, because of its approachable character and its accessibility to each and every one. Yet it feels to me as though no one in the art world really cares even when we know our planet is being damaged at an unprecedented rate. So I really want to make the development and use of new materials based on experimentation and research with natural elements a thing, both for my own artistic practice and for the art world in general. Materiality as an inherent part of artistic creation. With our modern technology it is also becoming increasingly obvious that so many possibilities are yet to be explored. Once others in the art world start realizing the potential and significance of this in our time, I am convinced the rest will follow by itself.
I truly believe in what I do and am hopeful for the future which is exactly why I am doing this and trying to convey the message to a broader audience. This is why I would find it amazing to find support and spread my work to a wider public and really be able to reach a variety of people that will, in turn, start experimenting themselves with new materials and hopefully, this can one day make a shift in how the art system works.
