SculpturistRhea Marmentini

I see stone as the manifestation of compressed time and the act of sculpting allows me to order the chaos.

Rhea Marmentini is a bold and exciting European sculptor who is a visionary artist and creator. She works with stone to create unique sculptures which generate order from chaos and reveal the material’s hidden beauty, while inspiring others to have a positive impact on the natural world.

She uses her vision to shape stone into powerful forms and uses the process to travel between different realities and connect with the minerals which she sculpts. Viewing stone as solidified and condensed time, she thinks of herself as a traveller, traveling through time in her “opus series” of archetypical forms and conceiving winged creatures who travel between different realities as part of her “beast series”.

Her work revolves around the search for ways in which mankind can have a positive impact on nature and through her sculptures she shares the joy of repositioning themselves as an essential part of the natural world. She explains, “Through my sculptures, I am creating art out of ancient natural materials, and redefining a space and enriching a natural environment. I hope my sculptures will draw people to beautiful places and see themselves as just a tiny, but vital part of this ecosystem, with a responsibility to protect and preserve it.”

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Rhea Marmentini grew up in Spain, studied art in Hungary and moved to Paris to learn, sculpt and travel as the disciple and spiritual heir of post-war sculptor Pierre Szekely. As an urban nomad of the late French “Art-Cloche” movement, she exhibited and won awards in France, Spain and Hungary.

In 2004 she began a land art and environmental project near Valencia Spain to heal and beautify a mountainous area damaged by human action through artistic expression. She transformed an old quarry and created “El Dragón de la Calderona”, a land art sculpture and centre for the arts designed to foster creativity and support artists.

Currently based in Malaga, Spain, her focus is on large-scale sculpture. In 2019, she contributed with a conceptual proposal and four monumental pieces to the transformation of an old basalt quarry into a sculpture park.

Opus

The Opus series of sculptures is the result of Rhea Marmentini’s search for forms which represent our genetic memory and our archetypes. The series forms a symbolic and timeless language which are dialogues of equilibrium. It aims to restore our connection with nature, ordering the chaos of the past through the sculpting these minerals which to Rhea represent solidified and compressed time.

Beast

Through the beast series Rhea reveals beasts and human forms contained in the stone and brings them to life. Her “Alados” depict abstract winged beasts breaking out from a cosmic egg to live between parallel realities. Whereas the women and human forms she sculpts are exposing the character and strength of the beast that is within us all. These representative sculptures show the raw, bestial parts of our true self, strips away the intellect and shows us as earthly beasts, connected to nature and parallel realities.

Personal information

Spanish sculptor born in Pecs (Hungary) in 1979. Currently based in southern Spain.

Academic training

1993-1996: Art Studies at Művészeti Szakközépiskola, Pécs (Hungary)
1996-2000: Disciple of PIERRE SZEKELY in Paris, who named her his spiritual heir
1994-2000: Participation in various art residencies in Japan, Hungary and Paris
2018-2021: Higher degree in artistic ceramics in Málaga, Escuela de Arte San Telmo

Professional activity

1995: International Symposium on Wood Sculpture, Pecs
1998: International Symposium on Monumental Sculpture, Granits Bretons, Ploumanach, Bretagne, France.
2004-2014: Creator & director of El Dragón de la Calderona
2017: Stone Sculpture Symposium IV International Transcarpathian Sculpture Symposium, Torokszentmiklos, Ukraine.
2019: First International Symposium on Monumental Stone Sculpture of Female Sculptors. PRO ARTE MUNKACS
2020: Second 1995 International Symposium in Kállósemjén, Hungary
2020: 23 Simposio Internaczionale di Scultura su Pietre FVG, Rihanna del Rojale
2022: President of not for profit Asociación Cultural El Dragón De La Calderona.

Awards and grants

1995: First prize at BIZSE JANOS sculpture contest, Hungary
1997: First prize in International Sculpture Contest. Troisieme Salon d’Automne D’arts Majeurs de Paron. Mairie de Paron, Ile-de-France, France
2014: Private Grant for stone sculpting at NORTH SCULPTURE COMPANY, Brooklyn, New York, USA

Selection of works

1998: TRANS FOR MANS, Opus 9. Public art, sculpted in pink granite. Placed in PORT OF PERROS GUIREC, France
2004-2014: EL DRAGÓN DE LA CALDERONA, Rehabilitation of a quarry through a sculpture building that today houses her personal museum. SIERRA CALDERONA NATURAL PARK, Gilet, Valencia, Spain
2019: UNION, public art for Tiszahati Historical Museum and Skanzen-park (Ukraine).
2019: IBER, monumental sculpture, Churriana (Malaga) representing Spain´s GENIUS LOCI. Commissioned for the International Biennale in Kiev “Sculpture in Open Air 2020”
2020: Opus 13, Monumental sculpture in limestone, Kállosemjén Hungary
2020: UOVO ALATO, Monumental sculpture for Circolo Culturale Il Faro
2021: TIME, Monumental sculpture for Bobritsa Sculpture Village, Kiev.

Selection of group exhibitions

1994: CASTLE MUSEUM, Pecsvarad, Hungary
1996: TOLGYFA GALERIA, Budapest
1998: La Mairie de Perros-Guirec, Bretagne, France
2007: La Defensa Y El Compromiso Con La Naturaleza Y El Medio Ambiente” FUNDACION BANCAJA. Casa Capella Pallares Sagunto, Spain.
2014: MAGEN GALLERY, New York USA
2021: Marbella Design Week
2022: “Made by Barro” LA CAJA BLANCA, Malaga

Selection of solo exhibitions

1998: Individual exhibition LES OPUS DE MARMENTINI Toucy, CCMY. Ile-de-France
1999: Individual exhibition: AKTION RHEAKTION at SSOCAPI ART SPACE La Maree, Paris
2011: Picto-literary meeting RENCONTRE PICTOLITTÉRAIRE by Rhea Marmentini and Pascal Sulcs. RIVOLI 59 AFTERSQUAT, Paris, France
2019: EBREDO VULKAN SZOBORPARK, (VOLCANO SCULPTURE PARK) Balaton, Zalahalap, with Balanyi Zoltán, Hungary