 |
||
| Of Chilean-Hungarian origin,
Rhea Marmentini (1979), grew up in Andalucia, Spain, then left home
at the early age of 14 to start her art education in Pécs,
Hungary in the city's renowned Secondary School for the Arts. Instead
of finishing on place and time, at age 16 she left Hungary to knock
on Pierre
Székely's (her favorite sculptor’s) door in Paris.
He became her mentor and would later name her his "spiritual
heir".
First settled in Paris in 1996 as an urban nomad of the late French "art cloche" movement. She discovered her voice at "Pole Pi" (the biggest art- squat in Europe of the times) where she had her first own studio. After their expulsion, she became part of the SSOCAPI art project (opposite the Musée Picasso); a "dream world" to her that became her home and experimental ground. The next years were a period of simultaneous learning, sculpting and traveling with Szekély as his disciple and assistant in monumental sculpture, till his death. With the creation of her Opus series she started a language based on archetypical forms. During this time she exhibited and won awards in France, Spain and Hungary. |
||
Subsequently, Marmentini founded a family and began her infinite Land Art project near Valencia, Spain, in her words "consisting of the healing of a mountain damaged by human action, through artistic expression and by evoking natures' organic rhythms". For the next eight years she worked on transforming the old quarry into a sculpture-building named "El Dragon de la Calderona", which is today her actual studio, exhibition space and research project; "mother beast" of the constantly evolving beast garden ("El Bestiario") that surrounds it.
Now Marmentini has made her way to NYC where she is working and also exhibiting at Magen Gallery with here newest New York, sculpture, Rebirth. Her previous piece Schist Bird, is also on exhibit at the Living Museum.