Marie Obegi

Biography

Marie Obegi is a Lebanese artist born in Paris. She graduated in 2013 from Parsons The New School for Design in New York with a BFA in Illustration. She then earned a Masters in Liberal Studies from the New School for Social Research in New York, focusing on aesthetics, psychology and philosophy.

Obegi’s works question how we connect both with ourselves and with others. She experiments with the figure and is primarily drawn to the way in which a face can express a story. Materiality, narration and savoir-faire are some of her most pressing concerns in artistic creation.  

Deeply influenced by her research in the domains of psychology, literature and philosophy, Obegi’s drawings focus on portraiture as a tool to explore the human psyche.

People have been her artistic focus out of a conscious choice, rooted in the will to offer insightful multifaceted interpretations of an unseen world. Contrary to a static aesthetic, Marie often fragments, transforms and mutates her subjects, and she strives to provoke interrelation and vitality between individual works. Her works speak as a series, and it is by presenting them as such that she allows the works to have a dialogue with one another, opening them up to greater interpretation.

 Her series of works presented by ICHANT Gallery, ‘8.15’, explores remembrance and disapearance in the context of War.

 « J’ai eu chaud place de la Paix. Dix mille degrés sur la place de la Paix. Je le sais. La température du soleil sur la place de la Paix. Comment l’ignorer ? »

 "I have been warm in the Place of Peace. Ten thousand degrees in the Square of Peace. I know it was. The temperature of the sun in Peace Square. How can you ignore it?”

 The title of this series corresponds to the time when the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 during World War II, an event that altered the history of Japan, international relations and the conversation around nuclear weapons; the effects of which would continue to unfold long after the initial explosion.

This nuclear explosion that took place over the Japanese city, and the horrors that followed, is paradoxically described using vocabulary related to light and the sun; radiation, rays, fusion.  We know, too, that everything was vaporised in Hiroshima including humans. The deadly radiation was invisible, the living erased.

After living two years in Japan, and a visit to the site of Hiroshima, Marie Obegi created this series of monotypes, applying multiple pictorial techniques. The brown tones, along with the earthy and oily texture of these works, feel reminiscent of imaginary traces left by an unseen evil. The faces appear ghostly, scrambled and half-covered, so the viewer is not presented with a ‘clean’ or ‘complete’ portrait,  however, this quality activates the presence of the subjects; collectively engaging with our mind, asking for active thought and demanding to be remembered. 

Written by Margaux Bonopera

Exhibitions

 Solo Exhibitions

2016

‘Despite your thoughts: Turn in your understanding’ / Private residence, New York, USA

‘Vous m'habitez infiniment’ / Kogan Gallery, Paris, France

‘Les Altérés’ / Galerie Fadi Mogabgab, Bierut, Lebanon

‘Los territorios volátiles’ (Volatile Territories) / Alianza Francesa Language School Art Gallery Arequipa, Peru

Group Exhibitions

2019

‘The 6th Japan Print Society Kansai Branch Exhibition’ / Kyoto City International Foundation, Kyoto, Japan

2018

‘The 5th Japan Print Society Kansai Branch Exhibition’ / Kyoto City International Foundation, Kyoto, Japan

2015

Beirut Art Fair / Galerie Fadi Mogabgab, Beirut, Lebanon

‘Emerging to Established - Year 3, A Group Show’ / Krause Gallery, New York, USA

‘MINUIT BLEU: A Tale of Ending Romances’ / Carriage House Center, New York, USA

2014

‘PORTRAITS: Selected work by Marie Obegi & J. Ryan Ulsh’ / Krause Gallery, New York,USA