Marco Urso (1982),
his pseudonym is Marck Art,
lives and works between Palermo and New York

His history is both mysterious and magic. He has a troubled childhood due to some diseases he suffers from his birth and experiences difficulties at school. An enfant prodige, committed to study both piano and composition and attending the Conservatory of Palermo. In 2006 he has a temporary heart attack and lives the experience of deep coma which would definitely change him. He abandons his piano studies and starts a new artistic life following the path suggested by his Guardian Angel Matteo before he recovered from coma. At the hospital of S.S. Oasi of Troina, he starts his first work so-called The shoe and after 12 months he would start his new painter career without stopping. In 2007 he ends Cure, a large 300 x 165 cm canvas. Being affected by a sort of bulimia of art and painting mixed with spirituality, he starts his works production by being permanently inspired by his life. He continues with Heart claustrophobia, The Gate of destiny depicting one of his nocturnal visions. In 2009, The Annunciation where he depicts four components of a well-known Venetian family with a series of prescient details before knowing them in reality. In 2009, Marck depicts his Self-portrait, one of the amazing works of his personal and artistic path where he expresses his full expressive charge and his introspective pictorial charism. Subjects as illness, suffering, recovering are addressed in his first paintings with strong colors, inspired by the Sicilian countryside and displayed during his first solo exhibitions. With The Jordan I River , he starts the cycle of paintings dedicated to the river and perceived as an archetypal place, namely the threshold, the passage through the river banks, the place where Marck draws inspiration and where he usually goes. Here the artist enters into dialogues with the present and past characters and where he perceives their souls and stories. The artworks devoted to the Jordan River are the results of those dreamy dialogues which color his painting with a strong expressionist component. Marck is also chairman and founder of the art and culture association so-called “AUU” and based in Favara. Since 2009 he has organized his exhibitions where he exhibits his work Heart claustrophobia in the Biotos gallery based in Palermo curated by Tanino Bonifacio. In 2010 Marck Art participates to the exhibition held in the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice, Trapani. In the same period, he exhibits The Truth of Mercy to the fourteenth Biennale d’Arte Sacra in Teramo headed The Beatitudes and curated by Lorenzo Canova. In 2011 he organizes his Vedere come Vedere solo exhibition at the Government Palace of Agrigento, curated by Tanino Bonifacio and in 2012 his La stanza della medicina solo exhibition at Palazzo dei Normanni in Palermo. In 2012 he participates to the Aspetti Architettonici e Paesaggistici Siciliani exhibition with his Bening cells, phlogosis Inflammation of benign cells displayed in the Municipalities of Alcamo, Sant’Angelo di Brolo, Messina, Catania and Palermo. In 2014 his artwork Exit from a depressive tunnel is selected to represent the Sicilian artists at the Da Pirandello a Iudice exhibition curated by Vittorio Sgarbi at the Tonnara Florio in Favignana, an itinerant exhibition also organized in Palazzo Sant’Elia in Palermo and later in Catania. In November 2015 he is selected for the The Power of Diversity, a collective exhibition conceived and sponsored by WISH World International Sicilian Heritage in collaboration with Unesco DESS and Archikromie at the Chiesa dei Tre Re and at the Regional Museum of Contemporary Art Palazzo Belmonte Riso based in Palermo, curated by Chiara Modìca Donà dalle Rose. In 2016 he is selected to represent the Abrahamic Pavilion during the Venice preview of BIAS – Biennale Internazionale di Arte Contemporanea Sacra delle Religioni dell’Umanità. In Autumn he exhibits at the Regional Museum of Contemporary Art Palazzo Belmonte Riso and the Archdiocesan Museum based in Palermo, inside the Abrahamic Pavilion during the first edition of BIAS, produced by WISH World International Sicilian Heritage and curated by Chiara Modìca Donà Dalle Rose. In October he exhibits 11 large canvas (300×200 cm) at the Morsasco Castle in Alessandria, a solo exhibition devoted to the Pittura dei Grandi Fiumi Giordano. In 2017, his work so-called Captain on board has been reproduced in the artistic bookcase of Concert. A furniture collection designed by Aldo Cichero for the 99ARTinDESIGN project by Boffetto, form to furniture. His artworks have been included in several art catalogues together with critical texts. Authors such as Gaspare Agnello, Tanino Bonifacio, Lorenzo Canova, Chiara Modìca Donà Dalle Rose, Claudio Rizzi and Vittorio Sgarbi have written about the artist and his works.