Marcelo Eli Sarmiento is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist (b. 1989) whose work explores the intersection of epic myth and personal storytelling. His symbolically charged paintings and drawings draw on classical iconography and art history. By expressing the truth of his lived experiences through classical frameworks, his work is shaped by expressionism and pictorial drama. The figures in his art often appear as warriors, muses, beasts, and lovers—archetypes shaped by transformation, desire, and spiritual contemplation.
The visual language of his work is grounded in color, texture, and form, yet the mark-making remains urgent and raw, prioritizing immediacy over refinement. Influenced by Renaissance, Medieval, and Baroque compositions, his work is also filtered through the expressive distortions of painters like Beckmann, Baselitz, and Bob Thompson. This dynamic blend questions the permanence of power, the architecture of belief, and the weight of inherited myth.
At the core of Sarmiento's practice is a confrontation with the human condition: mortality, violence, ecstasy, and conviction. These paintings are not nostalgic recreations of classical narratives but emotional eruptions—portals into the sacred, the tragic, and the unresolved. Through this anthology of history and myth, Sarmiento seeks to uncover his own internal battles and modes of expression. He lives and works in Chicago.