Thomas de Marsay

Barcelona-based Andalusian painter Thomas de Marsay textures his careful, small-scale oil paintings with delicate brushstrokes that give his references to pop culture and art history an affecting intimacy. Allusions to Van Eyck, Velazquez, Francis Bacon, Cézanne and others turn moments from Hollywood cinema and comic books into fascinating and quizzical scenes that tease our curiosity and taste for narrative. Intentionally and playfully, de Marsay never gives us all the pieces of the puzzle, reveling instead in the tension between tableaux and storytelling.

These quotes and tributes never give the composition the ironic edge of pop art, but instead are adapted into scenes that feel genuine, loaded and eerily organic. De Marsay manages to portray his iconic characters—superheroes, 50’s celebrities, famous movie characters—with empathy and gravity. Suddenly, these figures from other familiar stories become actors in new dramas, unknown theatrics and we’re candidly glimpsing in media res. Timeless, yet undeniably contemporary, conscious of history, yet defiantly new, de Marsay’s paintings offer uncanny novel discoveries.