N30, 2024

Eric Marsiam  

He studied at the Beaux-Arts in Toulouse and at the National School of Paris. After having frequented La Grande Chaumière, he met the brothers Bram and Geer Van Velde. Thus, he met their friend Stanley William Hayter from Atelier 17. He obtained the national engraving diploma under Hayter's direction in the early 1960s. Former drawing teacher at the National Education, Eric Marsiam was devotes to painting while exercising the profession of theater decorator, in particular alongside Jean Anouilh and Henry de Montherlant with the Grenier de Toulouse and the Opéra de Paris. It is his travels around the world - such as that to the Sahara, Asia and southern Europe - that give inspiration to his works painted by theme. Style: Eric Marsiam's beginnings are based on the figurative. His work with Atelier 17 is part of the abstraction in engraving. The “Hayter method” is characterized by a simultaneous color printing process that combines intaglio and relief engravings in order to link content and form. A play on transparencies, resonances of tones and materials emerges. As a result, Eric Marsiam conveys a high quality of permeability to these works. Untitled, his creations allow viewers to free their arbitrariness. Calling on the dialectic of subjectivity, a co-productive relationship is born between the artist, the works and the audiences. The absence of hermeneutics generates the awakening of the senses, the exteriorization of the imagination. The trompe-l'oeil drop technique, the result of a reserve in engraving on copper plates with alcohol and petroleum among others, gives rise to the poetic or even symbolic character emanating from the works of Eric Marsiam.