(Argentina, b.1956)

Jose Alberto Marchi’s paintings are highly conceptual investigations of the phenomena of light, as energy, as metaphor, and as a formal attribute of both painting and photography.  Marchi’s paintings include figures gleaned from anonymous 19th-century photographs.  Marchi paints these figures in otherworldly atmospheres of light and shadow. Marchi sometimes paints virtually identical compositions, with formal values suggesting a photograph and it’s negative. His highly curated solo exhibitions often reference specific artists (Eakins, Muybridge, Cage) or art historical events. Jose Alberto Marchi’s art can be said to inhabit a fugitive world where painting, photography and conceptual art are seamlessly conjoined.