Week 38: Marco Nabi
(Untitled)
Find him on Instagram, Twitter, Etsy, or his website.
Marco Nabi is a watercolor artist whose focus is what he calls “depressive-subversive.” His works aim to express depression in a “flamboyant” way that is powerful, real, and looks at more than what just being sad, which he says is hip and glorified in today’s society.
There are recurring themes in his watercolor: a person’s head, body, or entire being becoming an ethereal cloud in a specific color scheme, as if their emotions are bursting out of them uncontrollably (but beautifully, and certainly as he’s said, flamboyantly).
There are also a few pieces of his that represent animals turning into that same swirling miasmatic fog, though in my own (completely personal and subjective) opinion I see them as almost representations of mental illness themselves, much like this project by Toby Allen.
Nabi’s is an interesting thought process: as we discuss depression more as a society and as more and more beautiful work comes from tortured artists, are we glorifying it? Or are we just being more accepting of it? Is there a difference? To me, Nabi’s work tries to answer those questions, and what is art if not something to make you think?
Overall, though, I see myself in some of these pieces. I see the blustering storm hanging over my head, I see myself exploding into star stuff when I’m so full of emotion I can’t breathe, I see the buzzing of energy and recognize it from my own struggles. It’s beautiful art, and I feel it like a familiar voice in my ear. It soothes and excites me all at once.
comix quest 