Dutch-born artist Gís Marí’s practice is defined by patience, precision and emotion. The artist creates large-scale abstract paintings that explore colour, texture and movement. He works mainly with oil, spending months, sometimes years, developing a single piece, adding layer upon layer to achieve depth and intensity. His paintings draw inspiration from the natural world and the calm rhythm of life by the ocean. In a time when art is often consumed through screens, Marí values physical encounters: the moment when a viewer stands before a canvas and suddenly feels its energy. His work is a reminder that slowness, attention and craft still hold power in the modern world – perhaps more now than ever.
The artist’s love of painting is rooted in his childhood. His father is an art dealer, and Marí grew up surrounded by art. He explains: “I remember as a child when he would return from Paris with newly acquired art under his arm, excitedly sharing with me what he had just bought. What fascinated me as a young boy was that the artist could distil their energy in the painting; they could invest the painting with a personality that decades or even centuries later, could speak to viewers like my father, bringing them to joy or tears or reflection. It was like magic.” The magnetic draw to the art world continued into Marí’s twenties, when he quit his university studies of psychology to devote his life entirely to painting.
Marí’s move from Amsterdam to Porto, Portugal was a pivotal moment in his career. “When I moved, I was able to concentrate better. For me, life in Southern Europe is more physical and real. People feel less rushed, and I think one should not create in a rush; you should work through and contemplate your work. I think this is reflected in my art, I take a long period of time to work on and mull over a painting.” In a modern era that sees quantity and efficiently often prevail over quality, Marí believes in the fundamentals of the old craftsmanship traditions. His creative process can take months, even years, committing to a conversation with the piece, revisiting as many times as necessary. He begins with a thin, diluted paint, applying it to the canvas to look for a strong shape and colour combination. From here, details are gradually built up, with Marí often taking week-long breaks between painting. He continues: “It is a process of exploring and feeling. In the development period, the line between mistake and success is extremely thin. I try to find what the canvas has to offer, and along the way, the piece becomes more profound.”
For Marí, the act of painting is inseparable from the rhythms of the natural world. The phrase “natura artis magistra”, meaning nature is the teacher of art, guides much of his thinking. A childhood love of the water – he grew up in a city just a few kilometers from the sea – has shaped his creative output. Today, his studio in Figueira da Foz is just a five-minute walk from the ocean, and the ever-changing reflection of the light on the water’s surface is a constant source of inspiration. In a recent series, Marí explored the tidal rhythms of the Mondego River, translating the pull and release of the current into broad gestures and subtle tonal shifts. On land, he finds similar beauty in smaller moments: the spiral symmetry of a snail shell, or the contrast of a red berry against a green leaf – examples of nature’s own perfect compositions.
In an age of acceleration, Marí’s art insists of slowness, patience and attention, both in its making and viewers. They are an invitation to look again, more closely, at nature’s quiet rhythms. Each work, produced over months or years, is given time to breathe, becoming fully formed before he signs his name and lets it go. Once complete, the painting takes on a life of its own. The observer can stand before the paintings, see the whole, its texture, energy and feel. It is here, according to Marí, that the true magic happens.
Find out more about the artist: gismari.com
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
1. Gís Marí, A mente e infinita, 2024-2025. Oil on canas, 181x208cm.
2. Gís Marí, A Agua salobra do Mondego dança com a luz do sol, 2024-2025. Oil on canvas, 205x136cm.
3. Gís Marí, A lie for a lie, and a truth for a truth, 2024. Oil on canvas, 176x121cm.
4. Gís Marí, The window of Orpheus, 2024. Oil on canvas, 168x121cm.
5. Gís Marí, The shadow of the eye, 2024. Oil on canvas, 167×107.
6. Gís Marí, L’amour est un oiseau rebelle, 2025. Oil on canvas, 210x147cm.
7. Gís Marí, Em busca do horizonte, 2024-2025. Oil on canvas, 212x162cm.
