MARION ELLENA
Bio
Marion Ellena’s photographic work is rooted in an archival approach, drawing on images from different periods—photographs from her adolescence, and pictures taken by those around her, particularly her mother. Through this material, she explores the theme of memory through the experience of exile, examining her recollections through their emotional resonance.
Her approach is inextricably linked to darkroom work and subverts the reproducible nature of her medium. She combines collages, filters and photograms, and deliberately distorts the sharpness of the image to blur reference points and create distance from the memory. She asserts that an image, even if the negative or digital file still exists, could never be printed in the same way, as the chosen paper no longer exists or the chemicals used have expired. This economy of means opens up a field of experimentation, where accidents are welcomed and harnessed as elements of her artistic language.
Born in 1992 in Venezuela, Marion Ellena (lives and works in Marseille) is a Franco-Peruvian artist. She graduated from La Cambre (Brussels, Belgium) in 2015 and from the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs (Paris, France) in 2017. Her recent exhibitions have taken place at the Jeu de Paume Lab (Paris, FR), Polyptyque (Marseille, FR), Centre Photographique (Marseille, FR), sissi club (Marseille, FR), L’Imagerie — centre d’art (Lannion, FR) and club 6c6 (Grenoble, FR). She was awarded the Résidence 1+2 in 2023 and was a participant in the Ecumes programme in 2024.