"Marco Sanges, endowed with a matchless eye, composes, seemingly at will, arresting photographic images encompassing Byzantine excess, Surrealist irony, and Gothic romance. If my father, the painter Balthus, is indeed one of his sources of inspiration, I would like to point out that that one could also cite, among many others, Luis Bunuel, Frederico Fellini, Eugene Delacroix and Caspar Friedrich.
But, it would be in my opinion, most unfair to Marco, perhaps even detrimental, to allow an undue focus on such visual sources to overshadow his extraordinary accomplishments in the photographic field. Indeed, Marco Sanges does not attempt mere photographic reproductions of paintings - as others have done - but he distills and transmutes such subject matter into his very own, wonderful, and quite marvelous, distinctive idiom." Prince Stanislas (Stash) Klossowski de Rola, Balthus son.

About Marco Sanges
From his childhood and adolescence every “signal” that his brain perceives from any reaction towards objects that has the slightest signs of artistic form, or in more broader genre of films, paintings, Marco instinctively relates these with Edward Manet, Max Ernst, E. Hopper, Eisenstein, Hitchcock, etc. then stores them, which through the “scanning” is like a violent tormented waterfall of conglomerated characters, scenes, geometric forms and narratives. At the early age Marco started to work at his uncle’s photographic lab and became fascinated by the crafts and the process of developing and printing black and white photography. Dazzled by fashion, he became a photographer for Vogue Italia before moving to London, where he now lives. Greatly attracted to cinema and in particular the luminous Black and White films of the silent era, Sanges creates photographs in sequence. Every sequence tells a unique, multi-layered story, creating a highly personal, imaginary cinema. Bigger than life characters and stories lavish costume and the core, reminiscent of Surrealism and especially the Visual and Performing Arts of the ‘20s and ‘30s he sets the scene, as a scene in a film unfolds a story. Magnifying imagination beyond imagination there is dedication to the often elaborate projects that are staged as a live theatrical performance The surrealistic feel of his work represents the liberation of the unconscious, as a means to create art outside the boundaries of official culture, the rejection of established values and a concrete effort to illustrate extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds, all elements typical of ‘Outside Art’. There is also an enchanting, yet dark side, to his work, an intriguing depth that appears to be destined to highlight the drama of life and capture the sincerity of the journey, the scenes of intimacy that confront human vulnerability, challenging our own fragility.

His clients include Vogue, The Sunday Telegraph, Trace, Elle, Creative Review, Dolce&Gabbana Agent Provocateur and The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. His previous solo exhibitions include: Art and Design London 2012. Gosh Art Auction London, Edward James Foundation (2011), Big Scenes, Hackney Empire, London (2010); Beyond Decadence, Arts Centre, Windsor (2010); Savile Row, B-Store, London (2006); Purity, Cobden Club, London (2004). Group exhibitions include: Take Home a Nude, Academy of Arts, New York (2009); British Art Fair, Royal College of Art, London (2008 and 2009); London Art Fair, Business Design Centre (2009); Art London, Royal Hospital, Chelsea (2008); and 20th Anniversary, Jonathan Cooper, London (2008). Awards include Best Art Film at the Portobello Film Festival 2008 and Open Cinema Film Festival 2009 (St. Petersburg, Russia) for the short Circumstances.