Julien Marinetti

"I am neither a painter nor a sculptor, but rather both at the same time. I resort to a form of perpetual syncretism. The language of sculpture is certainly more direct than that of painting. It is also simpler to interpret. With sculpture, the artist has the advantage, the privilege, of being able to move around his work as he creates it." – Julien Marinetti

Born in 1967, Julien Marinetti grew up in Paris's Saint-Germain-des-Prés district, along the banks of the River Seine. He inherited his taste for culture and knowledge from his father, a photographer, and from his mother, who ran a school of theatre and dance. He began salvaging, recycling and tinkering with old objects, out of which he created his first sculptures.

When not sculpting, he spent his afternoons at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, a Paris art school specializing in live models, where he studied the nude form and French academic drawing methods. After a brief spell of just a few days at Paris' Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts (National School of Fine Arts), Marinetti was determined to make his own way as an artist. He continued learning and perfecting his mastery of painting and sculpting techniques, but also of engraving, ceramics and stained glass. He showed his first realistic bronze sculpture, the bulldog Doggy John, at the Galerie LC in Paris, which was promptly sold within the hour.

Doggy John rapidly became an icon and must-have item, and potential collectors were put on a waiting list. Marinetti created a series of collages using front pages from the International Herald Tribune newspaper, then a series of tributes - notably to Keith Harring and Andy Warhol - with a mix of collage and painting techniques. His sculpture became the preferred medium for his own painting, or what he termed "the syncretism of art."