About Marcel Garbi

Short biography

Marcel Garbi is a multidisciplinary artist. He lives and works in London since 2009.

His main professional artistic fields have been, in different periods: Illustration, Musical Composition, Digital Audio-Visual Media and Painting. Other artistic explorations along his life include Theatre, Film-making, Animation, Graphic Design, Photography and Sound Design.

The Illustration period spans for a bit more than a decade mainly in Barcelona during the 80s represented by “Safia” working for the biggest names in Advertising & Editorial (Mc Cann Erickson, J. Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam, Playboy, Haymarket, Philips, Merck, Abbot, Hornimans, Kraft, etc.) making above all commissioned hyper-realistic airbrushed work and some pastiches.

The Music Composition/Sound design period occupied also about ten years but this time that happened in Madrid. Marcel Garbi was composing music mainly for Theatre, although some Film music, Song writing and Concert Complex Music came out from that period as well.

Later on Film making and other IT Audio-Visual media was used creating several short films and other projects.

This current exploration -painting with Ink and Watercolours on Japanese handmade paper- started in 2014 down here in London till present.

Marcel Garbi is the son of a painter; his father was his first teacher and mentor.
He received formal education about other disciplines such as Musical Composition at university (UCA), Complex Music (F. Guerrero), Piano and Drama (Conservatory).

His paintings are included in private collections in USA, Australia, Argentina, Spain, Germany and UK.

Artist Statement

I think we are living in an illusion but sometimes we are “touched” from the other side of the veil. The arts -when they achieve it- open some of those magic gates that help us get across the veil offering a glimpse to the other side via some kind of "poetic event".

Creativity is an attitude, a view about things even before those things may belong to any specific discipline.

I do not feel “a painter” at all; I just work with Ink and Watercolours on Japanese hand-made paper to bring some poetry.

It is an exploration across Drawing -without a previous drawing, Painting -in a different way- and partly a certain awareness of the brush strokes as in oriental Calligraphy.

A “Minor Art”? …perhaps, but with capital letters.

Conservation PH was taken into account throughout the whole process. 
All my work here is “archival quality”.